


Pride and Prejudice in Space

by ChillinglikeaVillian1997_COEY



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Ben is horny AF, Desperate Ben Solo, Dominant Ben Solo, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hate to Love, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Klylo is Mr. Darcy, Lightsaber Battles, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Pride and Prejudice References, Rey is Elizabeth Bennet, Rey is a virgin, Sexy Times for Ben Solo, Sexy fight scenes, Vaginal Sex, complicated love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillinglikeaVillian1997_COEY/pseuds/ChillinglikeaVillian1997_COEY
Summary: As the title says. Loosely follows the plot to P&P with less characters. Kylo is Darcy. Rey is Elizabeth. Padme is Jane. Anakin is Bingly. Letting the Star Wars chips fall where they may. Kylo discovers the bond before Rey and he starts to use it to try to change her opinion of him. Little does he know her iron will and keen observations of his behavior and the mysterious bond will backfire on him.





	1. A meeting of Force Users

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a hug fan of both these stories (Pride and Prejudice as well as Star Wars), so I did my best to keep all hybrid characters in tact and organic. But as per fanfic usual i have me own spin on them all.

Rey-

Rey sat at the table in her modest homes modest tea room while her not so modest mother followed her father around the home pestering him about some man of the single nature. Padme sat beside her younger sister working a embroidery cushion effortlessly. Jyn beside her sat absent mindedly playing with her dark hair. Both Rey's sisters were very beautiful, especially in this early morning light coming in from the meadow facing window. Rey was considered the plainest child of the three. Perhaps it was her lacking the dark hair and lashes her sisters had. Perhaps it was her dusty freckles that littered her sun kissed skin. All three girls were considered very accomplished amongst their small community; Padme for her intuitive understanding of politics, Jyn for her sharp fire like personality and intelligence, Rey was recognized perhaps most for her expertise in piloting and engineering. But as far as men went (the humanoids on the planet at least) much of the attention was soaked up by her sisters. Rey didn't mind however, she was content to be left to her designs of x-wings and tinkering with her father in their workshop.  
None of the girls were overly interested in overhearing their mothers sexist ramblings of pawning off one of her daughters to the fresh meet arriving by private shuttle in a few moons. Rey flipped a page in her sketchbook and was only stirred by Jyn's sudden cough. As she looked up at her sister her mother burst into the room followed by her father.  
"How can you tease me so! Mr. Kenobi!"  
"My dear, would you give me a chance to speak and you may hear something of positive influence over your nerves." Rey stifled a laugh at her father's quip.  
"Obi-Wan! What are you hiding?" Her mother's use of her father's first name meant her patience was wearing dangerously thin.  
"I said I would not go visit this you man when he is settled. I have said this because I am to be in the welcoming party. One of the men arriving as his companion is something of a god son to me and it was him mothers wish that I great him and watch over him on him visit here."  
"Oh, Mr. Kenobi!" Her mother cried joyously.  
"Real yourself in, my dear. You and the girls will not meet him or any of the men in their party until the ball they will be having a week after arriving."  
"Girls! Do you hear that? A Ball!"  
Rey looked at her mother disinterest. Jyn coughed, or maybe scoffed in false humor? Padme was the only one who attempted respect for their mother's excitement.  
"How fun mother." She feigned excitement.  
Their mother huffed and strode out of the room screeching at servants to run to town to pick up various beauty products.  
All Rey heard about for the next two months was the looming ball, the awaited arrival of a young bachelor, and her fathers god son. At least hearing about the mysterious god son was some what interesting. As Rey became more covered with dirt and grease in the workshop, her father would sit on a stool overlooking her work and telling her stories of befriending a woman during the revolution against the senate and the Sith. Her name was Leia. She had begged for her fathers help, calling him "their last hope." After winning the war Leia and her husband Han had had a child and named it after her father's middle name, Benjamin, Ben for shirt. This was the mysterious charge headed to her planet. Her father hadn't see him since he was thirteen, almost sixteen years ago.  
"He was a very sharp young boy, training in the ways of the force to become a Jedi. I remember how much he used to complain about it though." Her father laughed at his memories out loud. It made Rey smile. "He just wanted to be a smuggler like his dad."  
"Smuggler!" Rey exclaimed. Her father was a by the book sort of man, so the idea that he had befriended a know smuggler caught her completely off guard.  
"Han is a good man, Rey. One thing I have learned from my life is that we cannot hold prejudices against one another, and we mustn't be prideful. You'll save yourself a lot of pain if you learn that now, my daughter."  
Rey went back to the engine that remained half dismantled before her. Her father stood and bent over the speeders engine as well thoughtfully.  
"You know you really are my favorite, Rey." He said proudly.  
"Father!" Rey groaned.  
Ben-

As the shuttle descended Ben couldn't help but turn up his nose at the dusty ground of the planet they had willingly gone to.  
"Anakin, I do not understand why you chose this Force-forsaken planet to purchase a home." Ben could feel the lifeless culture of the atmosphere irritating his ego.  
"Ben, we haven't even landed yet." Anakin walked beside his Jedi academy friend.  
"Exactly. I can already feel that there is no reason to land."  
"I think country life is just what your stuffy personality needs." Cassian's voice was heard from the cockpit of the shuttle.  
"No one asked you." Ben didn't love Ani's choice in pilot and travelling companion. He had met Cassian on a mission for the Jedi council and the two had been close ever since. Though Ani and Ben had been friends since they were children, Ben still felt threatened by Cassian. He was able to relax and have fun in a way the Ben had long forgotten. He was often accused of being cruel and lifeless because of his seriousness. His parents disowning him and sending him away to his uncle at the age of fourteen had jaded him in a way he saw now course back from.  
"I don't recall hearing this planet asking for your good opinion either, your highness." Cassian spat just loud enough for Ben to hear. Though Ben had the title of prince, he had no planet to inherit from his mother after it had been destroyed during the days of the rebellion.  
"How long until we land?" Ani asked to ease the tension.  
"Any minute now." Cassian called out.  
Ben strapped his lightsaber to his belt. His all black robes made him seem threatening already, but with the added bearing of a weapon he hoped it would deter any local from striking up a conversation with him. Ben hated small talk.  
"Do you really need that on your belt?"  
"A Jedi is ready for anything at all times." Ben deadpanned.  
Ani huffed and conceded strapping his lightsaber to his belt as well.  
"Will Luke be joining us on this planet?" He asked jokingly. Ani knew how Ben detested his uncle, their master.  
"Let's hope not." Ben grumbled as the shuttle set itself on the ground.  
With a hiss the shuttle door dropped allowing the three men and assorted staff members to walk down the ramp to the dusty fields of a sad excuse for a space port. Standing a few yards from the ramp stood a group of people. Among them assorted staff and Jedi. One that stood apart from the crowd was a man dressed in simple brown white robes. He had long brown grey hair and a short grey beard. Ben recognized him as his mothers old friend and his god father Obi-Wan Kenobi, the legendary Jedi and war hero.  
Ben had an enormous amount of respect for Obi-Wan, despite the fact that he had retired the Jedi order to raise a family on a planet on the far reaches cut off from the force. He hadn't wanted his family to be "burdened" by the Jedi way of life. He remembered him talking about his daughters when he had last seen him. He had two girls, a three year old and a five year old. Ben couldn't remember their names, but he remembered thinking less of them. They were not Jedi, not anything.  
Ben bowed slightly at his god father.  
"None of that here, Ben." Obi-Wan took him into a hug. Ben did not hug him back, instead he went rigid at the strange expression of affection. "It's been too long, son."  
"Obi-Wan, how did you know I would be here?"  
"Your mother called, wanted me to look after you."  
Ben hadn't seen his mother in over fifteen years. His life as a Jedi ad kept him away since his childhood. He hated his parents for sending him away, so when he was old enough to visit them he busied himself with missions and trips with Ani to avoid seeing them. He couldn't face those who rejected him, least of all his parents.  
"Of course." Ben finally breathed as he was released from the embrace.  
"You must come to my home for dinner, you and your friends are always welcome. My wife would love to have you."  
Oh yes, Ben had heard of the crazy lady Obi-Wan had married. A neurotic no one of no status, from nowhere. Yet another reason to avoid this planet, nosey old Obi-Wan, his insane wife, and their introverted low born children. He shuddered to think of the way the woman would most likely try to force their daughters down his and Ani's throats.  
"Of course, sir." Ben lied through his teeth.  
Ani appeared at his side.  
"Hello sir, names Anakin."  
"Obi-Wan." He shook Ani's hand while Ani's jaw dropped.  
"Not the Obi-Wan Kenobi?"  
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I would ask that you keep that between us, my family, this planet as a matter of fact, do not know that I was a Jedi Knight. All they know is I helped with the rebellion." He eyed Ani expectantly.  
"Of course, sir! Your secret is safe with us."  
"Hey! I don't believe I sighed up to carry your bags!" Cassian called over to them as he helped the staff with the many boxes of Ani's move in items.  
"Know you are all welcome at my home anytime, Ben. Nice to meet you Ani." Obi-Wan turned to walk away from them. Ben gritted his teeth at his mother's nerve. He was twenty-nine and being assigned a baby-sitter. Yet another reason to leave this planet as soon as possible.  
Rey-

Padme was the first to fall victim to their mothers make over mission. The ball was tonight and Rey had just been able to slip out of their home early enough in the morning to avoid her mother's crazed notions. Padme's lips were painted red and her face covered in white powder, her hair curled and pulled back away from her face, Jyn had escaped with mere heavy eye makeup and some concealer on the heavy bags beneath her eyes. When Rey snuck back up to her room to put on her dress robes she was cornered by her mother.  
"Rey! Where have you gone all day?" She pushed her daughter onto the bench at the end of her bed and began to call for the maid to bring the makeup.  
"Mother stop!" Rey cried out. "I'm not wearing make up!"  
"Of course you are! Don't be silly." She called for the maid again.  
Rey hated makeup. It made her eyes feel heavy and sticky and most of the time it just made her nose itch. She wanted to dance tonight and she knew she would be sweaty after. She didn't want to be sweaty and itchy at the same time. Her mother left the room calling after the maid. Re lay back into her bed defeated. She screeched slightly in frustration.  
A sudden slam made her sit up suddenly. The door had closed. No one had closed it. Rey stared in awe at what had happened. Maybe a draft had blown it closed. Her questions were soon interrupted by her mother knocking on the door.  
Who locked the door? Rey thought.  
She didn't let her mother in. She simply ignored the knocking and pleading and dressed herself. She wore a gold brown dress that hung loosely by slim straps. It was a long dress that barely hugged her body leaving plenty of room for motion, i.e. dancing. She left her hair in three buns behind her head because she hated having hair in her face and it was the only hairdo Rey knew how to do somewhat well.  
It wasn't until the carriage pulled up that Rey unlocked her door and went downstairs. Again, she looked very plain beside her striking sisters. Padme wore a pink floral gown with long baggy blush colored sleeves. Jyn wore a skin tight black body suit her hair pulled back in a low pony tail, curly bangs framing her dramatic eyes. The girl's mother wore a white gown and their father was dressed in his best white robes.  
The carriage was pulled by four of their best tauntauns. As the hover carriage moved easily over the terrain their mother tattled on about the man of the hour, Anakin, a Jedi Knight. Rey noticed her father shift uncomfortably in his seat. He had always been wary of Jedi, she suspected it was because he didn't trust the way they could manipulate the force. Rey had always been fascinated with the Jedi, but discourage by her parents to research it further than planet folk lore.  
"Do you think he's handsome?" Jyn coed sarcastically in Rey's ear. Jyn was only eighteen, a year younger than Rey, but had the jaded attitude of a woman far beyond her years. Rey rolled her eyes at her sister's remark. Padme leaned in.  
"Not that Rey would care, unless he has a cellenium hard drive she couldn't care less." Jyn laughed.  
"I can't speak for the cellenium hard drive, but I sure as hell don't care either."  
"I don't care, because he's most likely as arrogant as every other young man we have met." Rey looked at her older sister. "It's not my fault my average standards are unsurmountable incontinences for most young men."  
Jyn meowed at her sister cosmetically.  
"One of these days a man will catch your eye and you will have to watch your tongue."  
"The right man won't make me." Rey pronounced as the carriage pulled to a halt in front of a large mansion lit by torches.  
Ben-

Music rolled through the hall as people danced and drank. The band performing reminded him of the trash one would hear in a cantina. He walked alone on the outskirts of the room and crowd before finding a perch beside a window facing the front walk way where more quests were arriving to pay their dues to the honored Jedi Knights. He scanned the walk and saw various species dressed in their best robes and attire file up the marble white steps leading to the entry archway.  
Ben's cold eyes stopped on a bright figure emerging from a hovering carriage. A young girl was helping herself out of the door unaccompanied, dressed in a gold floor length gown that hung effortless off her body. She wore a focused no nonsense look on her brow and her sun kissed skin still glowed tan in the dimly torch lit light. Her figure was lean, but athletic and something else… The force. He could feel it radiating off of her, as if she were a beacon of force charged energy waiting to be channeled. He was drawn to her so strongly he felt his feet shift just so he could angle himself closer to the window pane separating them.  
When she disappeared from view, Ben went searching for Anakin. He needed to know if Ani had felt the same disturbance in the force as he had. Had he felt the same pull?


	2. Invisible Pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben discovers the beginnings of their force bond and attempts to take advantage of it. All he can think about is becoming Rey's teacher, in more ways than one. He is temped by the dark side of the force to conquer her by destroying her relationship with her father.  
> Rey is unaware of the bond growing between them. Even as she goes to stay with Ben, Anakin, and Casein, she is unaware of the plot unfolding before her. Ben's thoughts and feelings are being pushed on her as if they are her own, but she knows somethings off. But what is that certain something?

Rey-

Music and the smell of food and drink hit Rey as soon as they entered the ball room inside the white marble mansion. This room too was lit by mainly torches, but high up in the center of the ceiling was a lit electric chandelier. Rey's eyes drank in the beauty of the moment. The pounding of people's steps and dancing shook the floor in a magical way. Energy bounced around the room and laughter could be heard rumbling from the chests of many guests in the most cheerful way Rey had ever heard. Rey had not been to a ball this big ever in her entire life. It was amazingly vibrant compared to the small dances usually held around her community.  
"Before I lose you four to the whiles of the night, perhaps we should meet and thank our hosts for having us this evening?" He father suggested at seeing the excitement in Padme and Rey's eyes. Jyn's face read with the usual amount of disgust.  
"Oh Mr. Kenobi! What a wonderful idea!" Their mother whirled around and began to push Padme's breast up and play with her hair.  
"Mother!" Padme cried out.  
"What! Is it a crime to want you to look your best?" Rey and Jyn rolled their eyes and the four women followed their father to the end of the dance floor where their stood a tall handsome blonde young man and a shorter scruffy looking man.  
"Obi-Wan! So glad you could make it!" The tall one said as he shook her father's hand.  
"Of course, thank you for having us Anakin. Allow me to introduce my wife Sadine. And…" He looked at his three daughters proudly. "My daughters Padme, Rey, and Jyn."  
Each girl nodded respectfully at the sound of their name.  
"Please call me Ani. Welcome to all of you." His eyes rested on Padme for a long time before he looked back at their father. "Sir would it be to forward of me to ask Padme for a dance?"  
"Padme is her own woman if she wishes to dance you need only ask her permission." Obi-Wan responded.  
"My lady?" Ani held out his hand to the oldest sister.  
"I would be honored." Padme smiled in a way Rey had never seen before. Rey was about to dive into a theory behind the smile when an outrageously tall man appeared behind the shorter man who was now introducing himself as Cassian. He father shook his hand and turned to the taller man who had just appeared.  
"Ben! Just the man I wanted to see."  
Ben! This was the god son Ben? He wasn't at all the way Rey had pictured him. He was tall and intense looking. He had broad muscular shoulders and long dark hair that was shaggily combed back just enough to reveal his dark eyes. If his intense expression and building like stature wasn't enough to intimidate you he was also entirely dressed in black and had a strange weapon pinned to his belt.  
"Obi-Wan." He said apprehensively.  
"Ben this is my wife, and daughters. Anakin is dancing with my eldest Padme, and this is Rey and Jyn."  
He didn't look at either of the daughters. He simply stayed staring at her father.  
"May I speak with you in private Obi-Wan?" He said ignoring common curtesy.  
Rey thought her mother might explode from shame, Rey felt small with embarrassment. Jyn looked around the room disinterested.  
"Of course, son." Her father walked off the giant of a man leaving the women with Cassian.  
"Don't mind him he's a dick to everyone." Rey smiled at him appreciating his crassness. She loved honesty, even when it was brutal. She felt that it gave one character.  
Soon Rey was on the dance floor with a young man she knew from the scrap yard named Tito. He wasn't the nicest man in the world, but she wanted to dance and needed a partner. Plus, she could take care of herself. She danced until she was breathless and needed a rest. She went to the refreshment table to pour some water into a glass. She looked around, Jyn had disappeared as per usual during dances. Padme was dancing a slow folk dance with an older man while Ani watched close by in amazement. Rey grinned at the adorable attraction between the two and took a seat close by a window overlooking the sandy grass lands to the left side of the mansion.  
Ben  
"She is strong with the force! Untrained, but stronger than she knows!" Ben shouted at his god father.  
"Keep your voice down, Ben!" Obi-Wan warned angrily.  
"You have kept her from her true calling! You have hidden her from the Jedi. We always wondered why you chose such a far planet to raise your children on and now we know why!" Ben was furious. He felt as though Obi-Wan had stolen something from him. How could he keep Rey from what was so clearly her calling.  
"She needs a teacher!" Ben said sternly.  
"She most certainly does not!" Obi-Wan snapped. "I took my family from the world of the Jedi to keep them safe! I won't have you come in here and destroy all of it."  
"Kenobi!"  
"Solo!" The use of his father's name made Ben falter. "You listen to me boy! You are my god son and for that you will always be welcome in my home… BUT. If you so much as breath the word force in front of my Rey, I will see to it that you lose your status as a Jedi Knight."  
Obi-Wan stormed out of the study leaving Ben in a sea of emotions.  
When he reentered the ballroom, he saw his friend from across the room.  
"This evening has tired me, how long till these guests leave." Ben snapped in Ani's ear.  
"The evening has just begun, Ben. Perhaps if you had a dance partner the night would pass quicker. Where is the second daughter of old Obi-Wan? She's very agreeable I dare say."  
Ben looked at his friend in disbelief. He could feel the girl's energy from here, he knew exactly where she was. She was seated a few yards away from them sipping water from a crystal glass. He had now exactly where she was while fighting with her father, his pull to her was so strong. How could the Knight beside him not feel it? Her strength in the force was unquestionable.  
"I do not need a partner, especially not her." He shuddered at the waste of talent seated so close to him. "She is nothing, has no place in this story."  
He seethed at the low born woman who's only chance at moving up in social status was being squashed by her crackpot father and neurotic mother. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her rise from her chair rand set down the glass. She was moving this way. Ben froze when she arrived at the side of Ani.  
"Thank you again Anakin for having this celebration. We are all very honored to have you here." She smiled kindly at his friend. It was as if he didn't exist. He was so aware of her. So aware of her energy. So aware of her figure. Her scent. Her breath. He swore her could feel her heart beat through the force.  
"Thank you, Rey, for gracing us with your whimsical moves! You are a beautiful dancer."  
"Oh, thank you, but-" She paused and looked at Ben straight in the eyes, unafraid. "I'm nothing."  
She turned and walked off with a triumphant smile on her face. She had heard him.  
Rey  
After leaving behind a stunned Ben and puzzled Anakin, Rey went outside for some fresh air. She found her father outside pacing.  
"Father?" She walked toward him.  
"Rey what are you doing out here?" He asked surprised.  
"I needed some air."  
"Ah." He went back to pacing.  
"What's wrong?" Rey asked worried now.  
"I… I have come across a problem."  
"Anything I can do?"  
"Yes, as a matter of fact."  
Rey waited while her father paced. He stopped and looked at her.  
"Stay away from Ben Solo."  
"That-" She said. "Will not be a problem."  
Weeks passed, and Rey heard not a peep from her father about Ben Solo. She had no idea why he had chosen to keep her away from his god son. Not that she minded. He was a jerk. He was full of pride and unkind. If her father wanted her to avoid him she had no problem in doing so. She just wished she knew why.  
It was a thought that plagued her daily, but it wasn't until Padme was invited to stay with Anakin to observe the blooming season of his grounds various flowers that she was faced with a future encounter with Ben Solo. She was to stay there a week, possibly longer to enjoy the rare blossoms. She couldn't go without a chaperon and to her fathers and Rey's dismay her mother sent Rey to accompany her sister.  
"I don't feel comfortable with Rey being there, send Jyn."  
"And have her ruin the romantic ambiance! Never. What do we have to fear? It's your god son's friend just allow them to go."  
"I don't want Rey alone with them."  
"Them who? Your god son? A Jedi Knight who only has eyes for Padme? What are you so afraid of?" When her father failed to answer this question Rey's sentence was officially carried out.  
Padme left that morning with their things while Rey stayed behind to work on her speeder. She had decided to walk to the Jedi's home. The less time she spent with Ben Solo the better. When she arrived at the mansion she was covered in dust and grease from her speeder. Her hair was coming undone from her three buns and her skin was sweaty from the humid day's air. She arrived looking much more savage than she had intended, but how could one not look savage carrying a staff and covered in grease smudges.  
Anakin had greeted her as if he didn't notice the grotesque sight before him, but Ben however took her in wide eyed. Cassian inquired after Jyn. He wanted to know if she would be accompanying them later. Rey swore she sensed a bit of disappointment when she had said she didn't think she would be joining them at all.  
"I'll have someone show you to you room Rey. Padme is out back if you want to see her." Ani said kindly. Ben still said nothing, he just rudely stared at her.  
Rey was led away from the two men by a small creature with grey wrinkled skin. The creature wore a grey dress and white apron around its waist.  
"Barshami coldentra." The creature said kindly in a garbled voice. It was a dialogue Ray was familiar with and she responded with a thank you.  
"Mashina." Rey smiled warmly at the servant and went into the unnecessarily large room she had been given.  
The room was tall and had a similar chandelier hanging from the high ceiling as the one in the dance hall. She looked around the room taking in her surroundings. The walls were the same white marble as the rest of the home but was outlined by gold base boards and intricate imprinted gold designs along the walls. A low bookcase was nested beneath the single large wall sized window on the left side of the room exposing the elegant room to a heavenly natural light.  
Rey sighed. She missed her workshop. She was not accustomed to the finer way of living. Though her father and mother were fairly wealthy they had opted to tuck their money away for their daughters. Not much in the way of fine gowns, grand rooms, and expensive refinery found its way into Rey's home.  
Now being around it for the first time Rey was grateful for her father's insistence on a humble living centered around his daughter's education and peace of mind. Her mother, though not materialistic, had always wanted a son for her father to push his "masculine" interests towards rather than his "manly" influence over his daughters. A son had not been granted, so Rey and Jyn had been the recipients of their fathers mechanical and outdoorsman ship habits. They had eaten it up gratefully. Padme had opted to entertain their mother, caring more for appearance and tenderness of speech. However, she used this as a tool for her political career. She had finished her schooling and was now working with the Board of Democratic Protection.  
Their mother had still persisted in her goal for each of her daughters to marry well. It had been her goal since the day Padme had been born. She thought highly of her daughters and in turn expected great things from their future suiters. Her heart was in the right place, Rey knew, but it didn't change the fact that she was over bearing about it to the tenth degree.  
Rey moved and sat her dirty body on the clean bed and lay back, tired from her walk. Her legs ached more than usual from the journey. Her body ached. Not from the walk she realized. There was an alien thirst in her mouth and an ache between her legs that was less alien. Rey frowned. Where had this come from? It felt like the arousal had been pushed into her mind and body from a foreign source. It had not come on organically. Something was off. Something was pushing an energy that was not her own into her very being.  
Rey stood quickly as the ache between her thighs became stronger. She felt impossibly empty. She needed something… a cold shower would have to do she decided and she walked into the private fresher that was attached to her room.  
Ben  
Ani had been insistent about Padme staying with them to see the rare blooms in his garden come into blossom. Ben had no official say being as it was not his home, but Ani begged for his approval anyways. When he finally relinquished his halfhearted approval, he had not expected Rey to accompany her sister. He thought the mother would have sent the youngest as a chaperone because of the obvious attraction between Cassian and herself. Ben smirked at the thought of the neurotic woman not being as talented of a match maker as she most likely fancied herself. But Rey? Her father had practically force choked him the last time they spoke. How could he expect to shield his daughter from her powers when she was around him?  
It became clear to Ben very quickly that he and the dessert girl were connected. He could practically feel her shoving her anxiety, happiness, and frustration down his throat. It wasn't, however until their shared dream, that Ben fully understood the depth of their connection.  
It was the night before she and her sister would arrive, and Ben hadn't first understood where he was. It wasn't his dream he knew that much. He walked the dessert paths to the end finding only two large leafy trees. Behind one he saw the shadowy outline of a figure in the moonlight. Rey.  
She stood leaning against the tree looking up at the full moon.  
"Rey." He spoke. She turned to look in the direction of his voice but looked right through him. She scanned the dream searching for the source of the voice, unsuccessful. He was invisible to her. He stepped closer and before he knew what he was doing he reached for her. His hand caressed her face gently. She didn't pull back, but rather stood confused at the phantom touch.  
Her eyes fell on his. Even though he knew she wasn't seeing him, the sudden eye contact caught him off guard. A shiver went down his spine and his mind froze. He had not met her gaze before… and to be this close, even if it was just a dream, was intensely raw with emotion. Her hazel eyes were kind and curious, but also dangerous. Dangerous for him. The longer she held his gaze the stronger and tighter he felt their bond grown. Like a string attached to his lower left rib was being tightened and thickened all at once.  
He had awoken in a cold sweat, confused by his surroundings. He looked around wildly for those hazel eyes that had trapped him so effectively. The rest of the day he meditated on the tightness in his chest. He sat in the garden allowing the light side of the force swell within him. He felt her restlessness. He felt her anxiety. It bounced across their bond like a struck elastic band. He lost focus at the pleasure he felt when he fancied himself the source of her turmoil. The more he sunk underneath her skin the closer he would be to having her realize her destiny as a Jedi Knight.  
His mind became more distracted from his meditation when he thought of her need for a teacher. The dark side of the force crackled inside him. He would be her teacher. She was so innocent. So untouched. Her mind was waiting for his influence. She would be a perfectly moldable apprentice after she learned of her father's betrayal.  
As Ben's thoughts travelled father to the dark sider inside of him Anakin approached him from behind.  
"Padme is here." His nervous presence opened Ben's eyes.  
"And?" He asked irritated. He had been imagining the cruel things he could whisper in the young Jedi's ear during training.  
"I need you to greet her with me."  
"Get Cassian, I'm busy." Ben closed his eyes again, folding his lotus positioned legs tighter together.  
"Your connection to the force is hazy at best right now. Get up I'm doing you a favor." Anakin snapped as his friend.  
Ben stood reluctantly.  
"I could feel you going dark." Anakin breathed hesitantly as they began walking into the estate.  
"And?" Ben ignored his masters cautions to going to dark. Ben believed in the balance of the force, light and dark working together. His master was very old fashioned though. Luke had been a part of a generation of Jedi that feared the dark and even now while the Jedi taught balance many of the older Jedi masters had harsh reservations to going "too dark."  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Anakin sounded as uncomfortable as Ben felt.  
"Don't worry about me, focus on your guest and her sister." Ben was disappointed, but not shocked when Padme arrived alone. He had not felt Rey near him, but he had still hoped she had accompanied her sister.  
"Rey had somethings to attend to, but she will be along shortly." Padme apologized with more delicacy than Ben had ever experienced. Though he appreciated her refinement, he was not nearly as entranced as Anakin was.  
"We anxiously await her arrival." Cassian coed as he entered the room, a smug smile on his face.  
Ben scoffed. He knew Cassian was more intent on seeing the youngest, not Rey. But still the idea of Cassian flirting with even the idea of Rey was enough to make Ben seethe.  
Anakin took Padme around the Garden with Cassian and Ben trailing at a respectable distance affording the two some privacy. Cassian and he walked in stiff silence, the mutual hatred making the outside air stuffy. Later they all returned inside for tea. Most of the morning passed and still no Rey. Ben payed close attention to their bond. It was eerily silent. She was alive. That was all he could feel. No emotion. No energy. He gritted his teeth. He was suddenly becoming as Cassian had so pathetically put, "anxiously awaiting her arrival."  
A while passed midday a servant walked into the training room he and Anakin were sparring in to tell them that Rey had just arrived. Cassian stood all to quickly from his chair beside a weight rack where he had been reading on a hollo pad. Ben tried to make his walk behind Anakin and Cassian calm and indifferent, but every step he took was a painfully slow stumble.  
When Rey walked through the entry way she was carrying a staff. Ben cringed at her use of such a weapon. A woman such as herself deserved the elegance and un-forgivingness of a lightsaber. He clenched his jaw again as he thought of the upbringing her father had robbed from her. His clenched jaw and fists were soothed however by the kind gaze of her hazel eyes. Her cheeks were brightened by the exercise of her walk here and the light smudges of grease on her forehead and cheeks made her seem almost… endearing. Ben shuffled slightly in his stance as he felt the dangerous territory he was entering wash over him.  
She was young. So very young. He felt wrong noticing the curve of her breast and the smallness of her waist. But something felt so right as he undressed her with wide eyes. He knew he could show her the ways of the force, but he now wanted to show her the ways of pleasure as well. She looked as though she had been starved of the sensual gifts of life for far too long.  
After she walked with the Groundling servant to her quarters, Ben relieved himself to his own room. He could feel across the bond as he shut his door the exhaustion in her legs. Her thighs. God to be between those thighs.  
Ben groaned as he felt himself growing hard beneath his pants. He pawed at himself lightly as he pictured her in his head. He imagined how she would react to feeling his hardness pressed up against her during her Jedi training. He took pleasure in how he imagined her to be shocked at his length pressing against her. He imagined her gasping as he pinned her against a training mat. She would be gasping, short for breath. Only when she moaned he would kiss her perfect mouth.  
Ben undid his pants and pulled himself out. He began to stroke himself imagining it was her small hands exploring him with unexperienced curiosity. He felt across the bond. He felt her heart beating faster than usual. He could feel her confusion at the arousal he was inflicting on her.  
This, Ben thought, is so much better than I could have imagined.  
He didn't know how the bond worked exactly, not yet anyways, but as he sat there pumping himself laying back on his bed he smiled wickedly at the thought of her lust growing simply because he had commanded it to. He felt her fight against it, but he also felt her want. He could feel her wanting him inside of her, calling to him. He stroked himself harder, pushing his pleasure across the bond, moaning desperate for the reality of her touch.  
Rey  
The water was cold. Colder than she could stand and still the hunger wouldn't stop persisting. She felt herself getting wet, not from the icy water, but from her arousal. She slammed off the cold water in frustration. Her wobbly legs walked out of the fresher to the counter that held up an impossibly large mirror. She stared at her naked self in the mirror and gripped the counter for support.  
Were she at home she would have locked herself away in her room and rubbed herself into oblivion but touching herself in this foreign home felt strange. Her reflection stared desperately back at her. Her walls clenched and clung at the haunting nothingness. She couldn't help it, she let out an all to audible moan. Her nipples stood erect form the cold water, but they tingled as she clenched her thighs together trying to sooth the ache.  
The animalistic hunger was making her hurt in the best way. Rey had made herself come before, but from what her older sister had told her of men there was a difference between making yourself come and someone else giving that to you. Her sister's experience with a few men from school was all Rey had to compare herself too, because of her virginity.  
Rey breathed in and out attempting to push away the foreign need in her head and body. This wasn't her, it was as if she was being forced to want this. Her wetness was beginning to dampen her thighs and she tightened her feminine muscles and clenched to try to satisfy herself. Suddenly orgasm, not her own somehow, she knew it wasn't hers, rocked into her brain. It was impossibly pure. It pushed her over the edge and she came clinging to the counter as the phantom ache turned to an invisible release of pleasure.  
She gasped, in awe of what had just unfolded. Something was going on with her. Something was wrong, but it didn't feel wrong. Maybe that was the worst part of all this… something with in her had been awoken.


	3. The Phantom Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey becomes suspicious of the feelings she has around Ben Solo. She starts to feel his intrusion on her mind and even begins to realize some of her abilities. Ben decides the best way to get Rey to be his student is for her to realize on her own that she is a Force sensitive. He begins leaving her bread crumbs leading her to new information and new theories.  
> Anakin and Padme are growing very close in the background of the story, but tragedy always seems to fallow these two around. Keep in mind while reading that "sand" has and always will be Anakin's greatest enemy.

Rey

Rey had thought after her random surge of pleasure and relief, that the ache between her legs would subside. She had been very wrong. She was wet the rest of the day. Her legs hurt from squeezing her thighs together in an attempt to satisfy herself. She had even tried walking in such a way that flesh might cause friction on flesh with each step. To no avail did the ache subside. After an awkward dinner, with her seated across from Ben Solo, she had practically ran up the stairs to her room. She was intercepted by Padme when she took off for the stairway.  
"Rey, what's wrong? You were acting weird all dinner. It was like you were only half there."  
Rey had felt only half there. She swore every time she looked at Ben she could feel the phantom touch of someone's talented fingers on her clit. He was suddenly not at all repulsive to her. In her heated state she had maybe even fancied him sexy. His lips were so big and that mouth. She had found herself gripping her fork tighter than necessary.  
People would ask her a question and she was caught off guard and unprepared, due to her only focused thought was how her walls were clenching and releasing around her hungry emptiness.  
Ben's dark eyes met hers more than usual as well. It was like he was looking for something. Something to judge and hold against her no doubt, but she still felt herself bite her lip subconsciously much to hard under his gaze. Her bottom lip was swollen by the end of the second course.  
"I'm very tired." Rey said. It wasn't a lie, but she feared she would not be sleeping much tonight.  
"You're not feeling ill are you?" Padme looked overly concerned.  
"No, just tired. Padme, I'm fine." She was anxious to be released by her sister and be alone in her cool soft sheets naked.  
"Very well." Her sister stepped back no longer blocking her path.  
Rey took off up the stairs. She was almost to her room when she saw the tall cloaked in black figure of Ben Solo turn the corner near her door. He was reading and only looked up from the text when he passed by her.  
"I see you enjoyed dinner." He said in passing.  
"Excuse me?" She blurted out in shock. Had he seen her lust? Had he picked up on her loss of control.  
"I could sense it… well maybe enjoy was the wrong word." He stopped, turning around to face her. Rey backed slightly into the wall. She was not intimidated by Mr. Solo, but her over sensitive body was telling her to do things she wasn't comfortable with.  
"I can still sense it." He stepped closer to her as she stepped back completely against the wall.  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
"You're like an open book, to me." He emphasized the exclusivity he felt towards her.  
Rey was insulted. She was a lot of things, but to be a bland open book was something she did not agree with. She narrowed her eyes, pushing down her want to pull his mouth to hers.  
"I'm no one's open book."  
"I can see it… you… the waiting." He looked her up and down like she was his prey. "Waiting to leave, waiting to explore… so afraid to leave. So afraid… to listen to your starving self. You're so…" He was nearly pressed against her as he whispered heavily, "lonely."  
She slapped him.  
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" She shouted. "Enough of the cheap shots and Jedi mind tricks."  
He stared at her shocked by his sudden physical lashing. He was angry now, she could see his eyes darken with rage.  
"Your father has deprived you of the only chance you could have had. You desert rat, you don't even know what you have been deprived of."  
She slipped passed the raging Ben Solo and into her room locking the door. She was blind with rage. Dizzy with embarrassment. But most of all the way overflowing with lust. His close proximity had caused a title wave of wetness between her legs. Rey breathed in and out slowly attempting to meditate the unwelcome attraction away.  
Ben  
The slap had shocked him to say the least, but what came next drove him mad. Her door slammed and he felt a mental door open between them. Their bonds flood gates had been lifted, but not by him. Rey had kicked down this door allowing him access to all her emotions and reactions. He felt he anger towards him. He felt a passing feeling of fear as the contempt she held for him hit him hard and true. He was angry to say the least. What had old Ben been thinking? His daughter's strength in the force had gone untrained and as a result she was a sea of swirling emotion. She couldn't control it or herself. He felt her frustration and rage pound across the bond heavy in his chest. He nearly collapsed at the overwhelming amount of feeling she was inadvertently pushing on him.  
Ben tried to ply the bond to his will as he stumbled down the empty hall. He pushed her fear away and managed to influence her slightly, calming her frantic breathing. Her pulse made his chest leap erratically. He slipped a small vibration of trust across the bond. Not trust of him, but trust in the feelings he would send her way.  
When he arrived to the small dojo on the third floor he locked the door and sat in lotus position. He crossed his legs and pulled tightly on the bond. He merely hummed a chant of relaxation and reserve in his mind and she adopted it instantly. She was a greedy little thing, pulling on the soundness of mind he had offered her, something her father had not done. It was as though she were blind to the thing giving her this immeasurable relief, but continuously took it in all the same.  
Ben chanted out loud for some time. When the bonds waters had smoothed and calmed, only then did he stand apprehensively. She had nearly taken down his mental capacity with her anxiety and panic. As a Grey Jedi, Ben had been taught the ways of using his emotions to tap into for power, but he had also been taught the ways of how to keep his emotions in check. Rey was ebbing and flowing with raw strength but had been taught no self-control. It was a wonder to Ben how she had managed to no crumple a building in upset. Surely, she had noticed oddities in her life? How had she not felt the force with her oversensitive mind? Obi-wan must have been beside himself when she was born feeling the force radiate of his daughter.  
Anakin had still said nothing to his friend of the force sensitive guest in his home. He sat alone at the breakfast table with his old friend who simply tattled on about Miss Padme Kenobi. Ben did not see the draw. Yes, she was beautiful and wore many fine gowns and even her manors were up to Ben's standards, but she lacked the bold vibrancy of her younger sister. Rey was bright and wildly lively.  
He chose to give this wild child a break from his presence. He could see now that he had overstepped. Not understanding the gravity of the mysterious bond, Ben had transgressed. Entering her mind with such provocative thoughts had been reckless and dark. He regretted his actions, but the way it had felt to be so close to her haunted him.  
Now she had been avoiding him as easily as he had her. She spoke often to her sister and Anakin exclusively, avoiding his eye. Ben was a member of their party from the beginning so modern decorum had demanded his attendance during most every outing. Ben had been raised by his mother to ad hear to royal values, so he was not about to go back on his role as a chaperone. Rey however had been all too willing to relieve herself of his and the rest of the foursome's company to go shooting with Cassian. He didn't like her spending time with the low born brute, but he reminded himself quickly that she herself, though the daughter of a gentlemen and Jedi Knight, had little social standing on her own. She was, in fact, closer to Cassian's status than she and her sisters would ever be to his, or Ani's for that matter.

Rey

Rey was downstairs in one of the larger libraries. She sat reading an adventure novel laying on a bench seat in the sun. It was fiction taking place during the rebel alliance against the emperor. The story of the resistance pilot becoming stranded on a deserted planet with crucial information for the resistance had drawn her in so much that she hadn't noticed Mr. Solo enter the room.  
"Miss. Kenobi." His voice interrupted her enthralling novel. They had not spoken for days now. She had hidden behind Anakin and her sister as much as she could and had taken to shooting practice with Cassian during downtime. It seemed Mr. Solo despised Cassian as much as he did her, so this kept him from even entering her peripheral vision.  
Their encounter in the hallway had allowed her to see the darkness within the Jedi Knight. She saw why her father had asked her to stay away. Her father must have recognized the darkness in his godson before anyone else had. He had taunted her over her state at dinner. She was still unsure as to if he had known of her lust or if he had simply sensed something from the force, however it worked, and decided to make her more uneasy around him.  
She had calmed herself more easily than she was used to that day. She had felt something like a foreign control over herself. An ability she had never had before was suddenly within her reach… control.  
"Mr. Solo." She didn't look up from her pages. She owed him nothing, no respect, no recognition.  
"I wondered if perhaps I could have a minute of your time?" He sounded uncomfortable. Like permission wasn't something he was used to having to ask for.  
Spoiled Jedi. Rey thought to herself.  
"I'm busy at the moment." She turned a page easily ignoring him.  
"It will be but a moment of your time Miss. Kenobi." He sounded as though he were growling at her.  
The nerve of this man made her jaw clench.  
"What?" She finally closed her book. He eyes met his. He looked down at her with irritated eyes. He was so prideful it made her seethe.  
"I only wished to apologize for what transpired between us days ago. I had no right to comment on your…" He cleared his throat. Was he nervous? "Your taking ill at dinner."  
They stared at one another. Something seemed to pass between them, something unspoken. Rey felt something… something she could not put into words. Not an emotion, more like a vibration. A buzzing between her mind and his. She wondered if this was a Jedi mind trick in the making, but soon she realized that it was coming from her. She shut her mind suddenly. What was she doing? How was she doing it?  
Rey stood and set her book down walking away from him to the farthest bookshelf. She wanted, needed space from him. What was he doing to her? What was happening to her?  
"Yes well, not all of us can see what we are doing in the moment, Mr. Solo. Thank you, for the apology." She hoped that he would take her acceptance and run. He did no such thing.  
"Might I make a suggestion." He was suddenly behind her. She felt her mind prickle. Something like a tether between her heart and his tightened as his proximity closed in.  
His arm reached above her. She had not until this moment noticed their size difference. She was small and lean compared to his tall manly build. He was not exactly rippling with muscle, but his frame was wide and strong. He was an overpowering and intoxicating physical force. She couldn't help but wish for his body to push flush against hers trapping her between the wall of books and himself.  
His hand lowered holding a white leather bond book with a strange marking on it. She turned around to face him. She didn't dare look up at him, for fear of him seeing the flicker of lust in her eyes, but she did stare down the bound book.  
"It's not an adventure novel, but I think perhaps it may be something of interest and value to you." He handed it to her gently. Gently? How was this oversized monster of a man being gentle with her? All he had been from the beginning was detached and thorny.  
Rey took it from him hesitantly. He was gone as quickly as he had arrived. Rey opened the pages, which made a peeling noise as they moved. The book was old, that much she could tell. But what it had in between its pearl like bindings was a mystery she was intrigued to remedy.  
She walked to her bench seat and picked up her adventure novel. He must have seen her reading it. She was slightly embarrassed at him seeing her read such a childish and romanticized text, but she quickly reminded herself that she did not care for Mr. Solo's good opinion. Should he care to look down on her reading choice and sneer at her lack of galactic cultural exposure he could do so without her batting an eye.  
She sat at the desk in the center of the room with her two books and looked back and forth between them. She opened the white bound book once again her curiosity getting the better of her.  
Inside was a language she did not understand, but not one she did not recognize. It was ancient script used by the oldest Light Jedi. She couldn't read it, but she could translate it. She walked about the room in search of a book on the script in question. She found two wax coated covers claiming to have the translations she required. Rey set to work.  
Three Days Later  
Without her workshop Rey had been slowly going crazy. She wasn't used to not using her mind. She also wasn't used to not exerting her body. Her father and her had often gotten up before the sun to search the desserts for scraps to tamper with. Jyn often accompanied them, but for the most part Rey's mornings started with her and her father hiking across the dunes in comfortable silence as they searched for working parts and rare metals and materials.  
Without these two outlets Rey was getting cabin fever. That was until Ben Solo had fixed her up with a new project. The book he had shown her was one of the sacred Jedi texts. She had thought it extremely egotistical of him to want her to understand Jedi, but she was amused to find out as she translated he barely fit the profile. The Jedi described in the book were cool and calm. They were in complete control of their emotions, she knew this to be something Mr. Solo was incapable and or unwilling to do.  
The book taught lessons of reflection and meditation, ways to keep the Jedi's mind at ease. Rey guessed she had some things to learn from the book. She was no Jedi, but that didn't mean the book wasn't teaching her how she could better control her emotions. No fear, no hate, no suffering. These were things she read most about. Her mind felt good being bent and challenged by the texts complicated lessons and endless needed translation.  
She was in a hurry though now. The blooms were beginning to die off and lose their charm and as her and her sister's stay was wrapping up, so was the access to the book. They only had one more day and night at the Jedi's estate and Rey planned on spending the whole day indoors translating the text and printing it so as to read it later. Padme had told her sister over breakfast that she and Ani, that's what she called the Jedi now, were going for a picnic as a last day activity. She begged Rey to come along, but Rey refused.  
Mr. Solo agreed to accompany them. She was glad to have the house to herself, besides Cassian that is. He mostly kept to himself though when they weren't out shooting.  
As the day went on Rey had made a healthy dent in the Jedi book. She had been moving so quickly and so in tuned with her task she hadn't noticed the storm that had rolled in. She only jerked away from the text when a loud earth-shattering boom shook her core. Lightning poured across the sky and rain littered the sandy planet, turning must of the dry surface to mush.  
Rey began to worry when the Jedi Knights didn't return right away with her sister. The sand in the northern reaches turned quickly to sinking pits when softened by rainfall. The sinkholes would swallow you up and death was inevitable.  
After nearly an hour wait and no arrival from the Knights and her sister Rey went to the stable to saddle up a tauntaun to go in search of her sister. As she rose up and began her way out, her poncho flapping violently in the storm a voice called behind her.  
Ben Solo grabbed the reins from her hands and pulled her back into the stable.  
"What do you think you're doing?" He looked wild with rage.  
"I didn't know you were back." Rey looked down on him, even from her tall creature's perspective Ben Solo stood larger than life beside her.  
"I didn't go with them." He looked out into the storm now, she saw worry flicker across his face. Say what she would abut Mr. Solo, but there was no denying in her mind his love for his friend. She at least could respect that about him.  
"Then I'm still going." She jerked the reins from his large gloved hand and began on her way.  
"Wait! You can't go alone." She heard him saddle up behind her.  
"I know these lands better than anyone. I will be fine, thank you!" She was outraged at his sexist remark, but mostly she was done with the whole interaction. Her sister must be in need of her.  
"That's not what I meant." He strode up beside her speaking loudly over the wind. His dark long hair was blowing around and somehow simultaneously sticking to his head from the rain. "I only meant, that I can't leave Ani out there just as you cannot leave your sister."  
"Stay close." Rey said as she bucked her creature into a forward motion. "The sinking holes are hard to spot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hid some little SW quotes in here, hope they are noticeable. The book symbol is the symbol of the light Jedi. Let me know what you think. I'm really proud of this chapter and the next one is soooo good too, but it needs some editing and rewriting.


	4. Wet Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben race to find her sister and Ani in time, fighting against a wild storm. Ani discover's Rey is force sensitive and is suspicious of Ben's motives for teaching her. Rey has only been reading light force content and this has led to a misunderstanding of the force bond and Ben's powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for not updating. I love this chapter and wanted it to be perfect so that meant lots of re-writing. I also had a trip to NYC recently and when I got back we found out my mom has breast cancer. It has been a very hard few weeks, but I told myself that I need to get back to doing things that make me feel good and writing this story is one of those things. Please let me know what you think I love feedback.

Ben

He had decided to stay behind from Anakin's and Padme's plans despite his better judgement. Although Padme was perhaps the most agreeable of the three Kenobi sisters he still did not like the idea of his best friend lowering his status for a foolish errand of "love." The only reason Ben had decided to leave his friend alone with Obi-won's eldest was because Ani had asked him. He had wanted time alone with Padme to discuss his feelings. Ben knew if he didn't get these "feelings" out of his system they would only fester into something more powerful. He could only hope his friend would come to his senses.  
Ben had unfortunately not foreseen the storm that would take over the desert planet. When his friend had not returned after the first fall of rain began, Ben knew he would have to go to find his friend. He had not expected the bond, that he had grown accustomed to having lightly fluttering inside his mind's eye, to light up in alarm and anxiety. Rey was worried about her sister, he could feel her insides growing hard with worry and the instinct to protect growing strong.  
This was what had led him to the barn. Rey was not one to choose flight over fight, that much had become clear to Ben in his short time of knowing her. He was still, however, surprised to find her mounting a tauntaun wearing a hideous poncho that looked like something out of Master Luke's closet.  
He attempted to stop her, but it was no use. He knew in the back of his mind he needed her expertise on the planets geographical layout and environmental behavior. She was the only one who could lead him to his friend, the only one who could help them. Ben conceded reluctantly and allowed the untrained Jedi to lead the way.  
"Stay close." She had said. If only she knew how close he already was to her. Her mind was firing signal after signal at him making his head pound and ache. He wished her mental stress would shut up so he could focus, but part of him, the light part, remembered that she was untrained and in need of a teacher. He felt something for her… empathy. He knew how much her ups and downs hurt him, he couldn't imagine what it was like living in her head. Not just receiving projections, but the real time raw emotional footage. His heart gave a slight breaking sensation for her.  
He only wished to teach her. She needed to be shown that she wasn't alone. She wasn't meant to be alone. It ached in him as they rode through the storm fighting against the wind and the tauntaun's constant fright of the booming thunder. He felt the dark side of the force fill him as he thought of Obi-won. Why had he left the Jedi order? He had been one of the few Jedi masters who fought to teach the Grey Jedi way. He had been on council with Master Luke and Master Yoda. After the decision had been put to a vote and decided upon Obi-won had up and left the council. No explanation, no warning. Ben heard the story growing up from his mother and father of the legendary war hero and Jedi Obi-won, his namesake.  
When he was a young teenager her finally had the honor of meeting his god father. He had not seen the man since birth. Ben had been training with Luke and his mother for council responsibilities and Jedi life at the time. This was how he learned of Obi-won's reasoning for leaving. He had fallen in love during the clone wars but had fought it for far too long. Han Solo, Ben's joke of a father, had said "the man saw a way out of one prison and into another." His father the hypocrite had a point though. Obi-won had traded one set life for another, and in turn had abandoned the Jedi way. Grey Jedi were allowed emotional connections, including marriage. So why leave? And why sabotage his daughters rightful path?  
"Just ahead!" Rey called out. "I think I see something."  
Ahead Ben saw two trees at the end of a flooded clearing. He saw too, a figure huddled close to the trees. Those trees… they were so familiar…  
"Come on! It's them." Rey took off in a gallop like stride.  
"Rey! Wait!" Ben cried, but his voice was swallowed up but the sound of the earth shifting. A sink hole formed in an erupting cry near the two trees.  
He took off after the girl.  
She climbed off her large creature and ran to the tree where Ani and Padme clung to the wide trunk their feet being slowly sucked up by the collapsing sand.  
Ben raised his hand willing the force to slow the sinking of the sand.  
"Anakin! Pull yourself out." Ben knew his friend could use the force to lift himself out of the holes dangerous hold, but he had one arm around the trunk and the other wrapped around Padme's waist. He was refusing to let his hold of her go.  
Rey was dangerously close to the hole. Reaching for her sister who was struggling to hold to the trunk.   
"Rey! No stay back." Padme yelled at her sister. Ben pulled on the bond, as if he could control her he willed her to stay back, he willed her to see the danger before her. He willed her to fear it. But like a trampoline his projection was rebounded off her powerful need to protect, her need to be selfless.  
"Grab my hand!" Rey reached across the unstable sand to her sister. He felt her strength, and suddenly Padme was launched to her sister. Only a foot maybe, and what transpired could have been easily misinterpreted as Padme stumbling across the collapsing ground out of Ani's arms, but to Anakin's and Ben's trained eye they saw it as it was. Rey had wielded the force to save her sister.  
When the group of them arrived safely at the estate Rey rushed her sister inside with the help of several groundlings. Anakin followed Ben into the large library where a roaring fire warmed the air. Ben removed his dark cape and scarf that had become drenched in the storm and moved to the fire.  
"How long have you known?" Anakin asked dead pan behind his friend.  
"Since I first saw her."  
"But how! It was so subtle I only felt the force from her clearly as she pulled Padme from my arms." Ben heard the rustling of Ani removing his wet cloak and throwing it to the floor with a load sloppy sound.  
"It seems we have a connection." Ben rubbed his hands together and inched closer to the roaring flames. There was a long pause, but Ben could feel Ani not so subtlety probing his mind.  
"You have compassion for her." He realized out loud.  
Ben continued silent, staring into the flames that warmed his icy bones. He knew Ani was right. He did have compassion for the girl. He saw himself in her. Her father dismissing her rightful path and choosing a future for her. Her mother forcing her into engagements and social norms. She, like him, had been abandoned by her parents. They had seen what she was and dismissed it. They had chosen not to accept her, they chose to try to change her.  
"I showed her one of the books." Ben turned to face his friend. "She deserves to know who she is, what she could be."  
"You heard Master Obi-won, he didn't want anyone to know who he was, I think that includes his force sensitive daughter."  
"Obi-won is no longer a master, he gave up that right when he left the council. He is nothing but a washed up old fool, his brain has been fried by the sun here."  
"Oh, I see what this is." Ani sat down in a large cushioned chair looking up at his friend in disbelief.  
"It all makes sense now. The bond. The book. The way you look at her."  
"I don't look-"  
"Save it Solo, you want to train her. You want to be her master." Ani grinned.  
"She deserves a teacher who-"  
"Who can what? Show her the ways of the force? I think Master Luke is better qualified than you, Ben." Ani laughed at his friend's fantasies.  
"He won't understand her! He'll wreck her, ruin her." Ben closed his eyes hard trying to collect himself. "I need you to understand, Ani."  
Anakin looked him up and down.  
"I don't know what you want me to do? Obi-won won't let you near her if he knows you are trying to show her the force."  
"Trust me. She's on her way to finding out on her own. I can feel it." And he could. She was just scratching the surface, but each passing day he felt her become more in sync with the force. It was as if she had been fighting it, running from it unconsciously, wrestling it away. Now with the help of the book and Ben's constant meditation on their bond she was finally allowing it to catch up with her. All her natural talent was coming to a rhythmic flux allowing pieces to fall into place. If she didn't feel it now, she would feel it soon.  
Rey

Padme's fever had not gone down over night. She had been drenched to the bone and with her thin gown easily soaking in the rain it was of no wonder where the fever had come from. They would be stuck here until she was better. Rey had recorded a hollo message for her father and mother.  
"Mum, Dad. I'm sorry to say Padme has taken ill. She was caught in the storm last night and has a chill and high fever. I'm not sure how long we will be here, but for the foreseeable future I will be remaining here by her side to take care of her. Anakin has been more than a gentleman our whole stay, so please do not worry about us overstaying our welcome. The Knight's and their pilot have assured me that we are welcome until Padme is well enough to be moved. We love and miss you and hope to see you soon."  
Rey was back at her sister's side after hitting send. She dabbed her feverish head with a wet cloth and helped her frail sister sip at some root tea the groundling servants had made for her. It was almost 24 hours before Rey descended from her sister's room exhausted.  
The Knights and Cassian were waiting at the large dinner table for her. It was a late dinner being served on her account and she felt guilty for holding up their meal.  
"Sorry-"  
"Don't apologize! How is she? Does she need anything? What can we do?" Anakin attacked her with questions and comfort from the moment she sat down.  
"Give her a minute to breath Ani!" Cassian chastised his friend before looking into Rey's exhausted eyes. "Eat. Your look exhausted."  
"Thank you." Rey said as she began to eat her soup and bread greedily. She had been starving, but as she ate she felt as though she might fall asleep in her chair. Each bite she took used up energy she didn't have. Between the whirlwind rescue, communing with her family, and caring for her sister Rey had drained herself completely. She felt dizzy and was about to faint when she was brought back to consciousness by the screeching sound of a chair on the ground.  
Mr. Solo was standing, and he strode around the table right to… her.  
"I think we should have the servants escort the lady to bed." Ben placed a strong hand on her small shoulder. She froze under his touch. She felt something serge through her. Concern. What was she concerned about?  
"I'm fine really." Rey felt herself swaying only steadied by the firm grasp of Ben's gloved hand.  
It boomed through her now. It wasn't her worry she felt. It was his. She felt her eyes go wide as she felt herself inside of his mind. But how. He was pulling her in? No. he wasn't doing anything. She could feel it, this was all her. His physical touch was acting as a channel, and through that channel came his inescapable trepidation. He was worried… about her!  
"Perhaps we should take her to her room, she looks like she's about to pass out." Rey was losing consciousness. This new and unwelcomed flow of emotion into her head and heart was overwhelming her already shattered senses. Before she knew it, she was in her bed. The curtains were being drawn closed on her large window as sunlight attempted to peek inside, disturbing her sleep. She only saw one clear thing in her blurry vision. A black gloved hand reaching towards her face then touching her cheek pushing a few strands of her Chesnutt hair behind her ear. Then sleep conquered her again.  
Dreams evaded Rey as she slept. She was in the kind of sleep that had no subconscious thoughts. Had she dreamt she may have dreamt of the sensation of Ben Solo's strong and sure touch. Had she dreamt she may have had nightmares of her sister becoming sicker. She may have even conjured up a vision of her and her father searching for scrap, but finding only expired portions in the deserts of her home planet.  
Rather than any of this Rey awoke like a time traveler. As if she had blinked at the dinner table and opened her eyes to the elegant ceiling of her large room. The sun was setting, and her stomach was growling.  
She crawled out of bed, her back and legs sore from the abundant amount of time spent sleeping. She pulled off her day clothes she had been put to bed in and showered. Her hair still dripping and hanging down around her face. She pulled on a pair of tight thin grey pants that hugged her strong legs. She pulled on an oversized sweater made of white wool from a creature whose fur was so soft Rey felt as though she wore a cloud.  
She made her way quietly down the steps to Padme's room. She looked in on her sister feeling her forehead, the temperature not broken yet, before walking down to the kitchen. She had not been in the kitchen of the estate, only the dining room. She was amazed to find the various foods in the kitchen. She quietly moved around grabbing various fruits and bread as well as a glass of milk and hoisted herself onto the island counter cross legged. As she ate she reflected on the past. The connection she had felt to her father's god son. What had that been?  
Rey remembered reading something like it in the book Ben had shown her. Something about a force bond, but it wasn't good. According to the book the Jedi were not supposed to have emotional connections, this meant the connection was a path to the dark side.  
The book said little about the dark side, but it didn't sound like a good thing. The book had said this usually happened between two powerful force wielders. Had Ben become so powerful in the dark side that he could force this bond on anyone? She shuddered at the thought and continued to eat the round green seeded fruit she had selected.  
No. He couldn't push this link, this bond on her. She must be what the book had called "force sensitive." This meant she was in tuned with the force around her. Rey was still unclear as to what the force was exactly, but she did know she could feel it. She could feel him as a matter of fact. He was close.


	5. A Bond, A Force to be Reckoned With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey begins to explore the light side of the force in the sacred texts, but her physical powers have started to become more accessible to her. Ben pushes her buttons one too many times and really is in for it. Obi-won brings his daughters home, fearing a growing connection between Ben and his daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on making the next chapters longer, I felt like the length I was staying at was stifling my freedom and creativity. Let me know if you like the longer chapters or smaller ones better for content.

Rey  
He was close. She could feel something inside her reach out to him. And it didn't have to reach far.  
"Good evening, Rey." Ben Solo's voice was strangely relaxed behind her. She spun on the countertop and began to slide off in an attempt to appear less childish.  
"Do not get up on my account, please." He moved around the island as Rey resumed her seated position. She allowed her legs to dangle from the counter in case she needed a quick escape.  
"I felt you wake up… but you already knew that." Ben leaned against the marble countertop across from her.  
"What's happening to me?"  
"There's been an awakening in the force, your awakening." Ben looked at her as though she was the answer to a prayer.  
"Force." Rey stuttered out in a hushed voice. It was more of a comment than a question.  
"The bond is a two-way channel Rey, it's not just me and it's not just you. It's us, the force is bringing us together. The question only remains why?"  
"I'm not a Jedi, I don't understand."  
"I'm not sure I do either…" He paused. He was holding something back she could tell, she could feel the conflict within him. His mind was like a constant balancing of the scales, lights vs dark.  
"What is it? I can feel the conflict within you, you're not telling me something."  
"A story for another time." Ben said this with so much harshness Rey pulled her legs back to herself as if he had moved to strike her.  
"How do we make it stop?" This was the most logical thing to wonder, wasn't it? The book had said connections were bad for Jedi, but this connection didn't feel wrong. In fact, it felt more natural than anything she had every felt before. But she couldn't have herself being the downfall of a Jedi Knight, least of all the prideful short-tempered Ben Solo. He would never let her forget it if she were the cause of him being a disgraced Jedi.  
"That's not what you want." He said knowingly, but he still sounded hurt. How had she hurt him? She was trying to set him free.  
"Get out of my head." She gritted her teeth.  
"You need to stop projecting. You are stronger than you know, you've nearly blown my brain with your power more than once since my arrival here. Learn some self-control."  
What had he meant? She was strong? Rey knew she had a strength of character that was off putting to most, but he was talking about something else. The force. How could she be strong in the force if she didn't know what the force was or how it worked?  
He was moving towards her now, his hips against the edge of the counter she sat on. She pulled farther from him, even though his long strong arms could reach her no matter where she moved herself.  
"You need a teacher."  
"And I suppose you're the man for the job." Her eyes narrowed. "How long have you been exploiting this link between us? Hm?"  
His face contorted with shame.  
"That's what I thought. You're sick Ben Solo, from the moment I saw you, your arrogance, your distain and lack of respect for others, I knew you would be the last man I would ever be prevailed upon to consider, in any sense of the word."  
"Did you expect me to rejoice and be all knowing of the strange random connection that appeared as suddenly as I saw you? Do you think I have enjoyed feeling your rampage of unchecked emotion? Your childish wiles of panic, pain," he looked her up and down. "Pleasure."  
Rey pushed him away. He went flying to the wall behind him. She had not lifted a finger though, she had used the force. He gasped in pain as his back hit the counters edge and she pinned him back with the force in a contorted L position.  
"How dare you sir. And if I am as powerful as you say, then hear me now…" She leapt off the counter and headed for the doorway before releasing him into a pile on the floor. "Keep your distance."

Ben  
The sound of lightsabers hitting one another filled the training room as he and Ani worked through Ben's rage of being rejected. He hadn't understood what he did wrong. Other than the mistake he had made of trying to push Rey to a sexual peak through the bond, he had known what he was doing. He had known it was wrong, but the dark-sider that controlled a major part of Ben had been in command. He wanted to possess her and in the moment that had been the way he wanted to possess her. He wanted her body to quake beneath his as he delivered her release, release that the tightly wound girl needed so badly. He too needed the release, if he was being honest with himself.  
Cassian had often joked about Ben's lack of female companions. He had had brief liaisons with several high-born women, but he had not been intimate with anyone in several years. The pain he felt towards his parents and uncle made him not trust easily, say for Ani. His trust issues had led to an understandably inconsistent love life, one in which he had only ever had a night of passion or few scattered rendezvous. Over the last years of his life as a Jedi Knight Ben had dedicated his life to his missions, meaning no time for anything or anyone else.  
And now after this time of extended celibacy Ben could feel himself boil over at the mere sight of Rey. It was hard to control, even for an experienced Jedi. Not to mention he had been the spark to light the fire of her lust for him. He could often feel her attraction to him pulling him close, both physically and mentally. In the library he could feel her growing more aroused through the bond when he had retrieved the book on light sided force users. His intention had been to expose her to the side of the force she seemed drawn towards, light, peace, humility. But instead he had brushed against her darker side.  
He had felt it again when he had gone to her in the kitchen. He had been meditating on the bond, trying to decipher it, trying to understand where it was coming from when he felt her stir and then come out of her exhaustion induced coma. She had scared the light out of him at dinner the night before when she had nearly collapsed. He was worried she had taken ill like her sister, but after carrying her unconscious body up the stairs and laying her down beneath the cool white sheets of her bed he had felt her forehead and a distinct lack of fever. His hand, though gloved, on her skin was enough to buzz him to the core. As he had pushed her messy hair from her beautiful face he had intense need to lean down and kiss her awake.  
As he sparred with Ani now he fueled his pent up sexual tension into aggression. He could feel the dark side within him with every strike of his red blazing saber. He thought of her soft tanned skin and swung his saber. Her plump pink lips, he kicked Ani's chest sending him staggering back. Her soft brown eyelashes fluttering against her freckled skin, he charged knocking his best friend to the ground with the strength of his swing.   
"Ben!" Cassian yanked the Jedi away from his sparring partner by his large shoulder. "What the hell is your problem, man?"  
Cassian's accent always became more noticeable when he was angry or overly emotional. This happened more times than Ben could count. One of his least favorite things about Cassian was his lack of regard for regulating his emotions. He simply flew by the seat of his belt, always reacting never thinking clearly.  
"I'm fine." Ben backed away from his friend and their pilot.  
"Force, Ben." Anakin stood with a look of humor on his face. "I knew you liked the girl, I didn't know you loved her."  
He and Cassian were now laughing at Ben as he ripped off his dark gloves and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his bare hand.  
"I said you had compassion for her," Ani laughed as Ben caught his breath pulling his hair back in a band out of his face. "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love is essential to a Jedi's life. Not to mention a Grey Jedi."  
His friend had a point, but Ben did not fancy himself in love with the girl. He considered himself fascinated with her, fixated on her, he may even admit to being obsessed with her, but love was not something in Ben's vocabulary.  
"I'm not in love with her."  
Cassian spoke next.  
"Even I can see it. The way you look at her. It's not well hidden, my friend." He laughed.  
Ben walked out of the training room clipping his lightsaber to his belt.  
"Go to her my friend!" He heard the two men laughing at his expense as he walked faster.  
He wasn't going to her of course. His back and ribs were still bruised from their last meeting. Not that he was scared, but there was something to be said for her warning. If he wished for her to join him, let him teach her, he would need to earn her respect first, and cornering a rabid dog was not something that would help him at this point. Best thing for them both now was space.  
He ignored the prickling of their bond as he moved through his day. He resisted the urge to touch himself at the thought of her. He fought against the urge to find her in this damned estate and give her a piece of his mind. He was angry at the refusal still. Ben had felt she deserved him an amount of respect. He was Knight after all, a Jedi and by his mother's lineage royalty. And here she was throwing him around a room like a piece of trash.  
But the truth she had knocked into him had hit harder than his body had against the wall. She despised him. The hate had been clear in her voice as well as her eyes. How could he come back from that? He didn't like the complete discomfort he felt as he thought of her hatred for him. Like his body was punishing him with pain and anxiety for his actions towards her.  
It wasn't until later the next day that he heard a sound from Ani's guests. He had avoided Rey, giving her a wide berth for his and her sake. He was walking around the grounds when he heard her voice. She spoke kindly. More sweet and soft than he had ever heard her voice around him.  
"No BB-8, I can't leave just yet."  
A series of beeping communicated with her in a frantic upset sort of way.  
"You will have to tell Finn that I'm sorry, but Padme still isn't well- yes I know we have been here to far too long."  
The BB unit beeped defiantly.  
"No, don't tell him what I said about Mr. Solo, there's no need to spread more negative comments about him on this planet, I'm sure people get the picture by now. He is an arrogant and a monstrous person to behold."  
Ben ducked behind the corner of the barn. He was hiding. Jedi Knight, Ben Solo, was hiding from a small untrained Jedi. He had never sunk lower than this.  
"Tell Finn- tell him that…"  
The small bot beeped something unintelligible to Ben.  
"Perfect, tell him that."  
Who was this Finn? He felt the dark side enthrall him with possessiveness. Rey was his. She did not know it yet, but he could feel it. The bond was his proof. The bruise on his ribs was her mark on him. He was hers and she would be his. He was to be her teacher and she his student. Ben's impatience boiled over and her turned the corner facing his fears.  
The BB unit was gone, had he been looking he would have seen the small orange and white orb rolling away towards the Kenobi estate, but Ben's eyes were busy burning into Rey, who was busy reading the book he had given her.  
"I see you have begun to accept your place in all this."  
Rey looked up at him. A mixture of fear and anger flared in her eyes, but something snuck across the bond. She had let it slip, her curiosity. She hungered for more. She wanted to know who she was, what she was. It only made him want her more. Her tan skin was slightly dusty, she must have been outside on this sandy planet for longer than most would dare. Her hair was up in her signature three buns. He liked her hair up, it made her look ferocious and intimidating. He had also found the other day that he liked her hair down. He thought back to her hair being down and damp in the kitchen. She had been so innocent and feminine in appearance. Her white sweater and her hair hanging down made her seem untouched, pure. Perhaps that was how she had gotten the drop on him.  
"I see you have no respect for warning labels." She stood off the hay bale she had been reading on top of. He moved to her, towering over her. He pushed out his chest and shoulders covering her body with the shadow of his own. She backed into the hay bale as he moved closer to her.  
"You forget, I can feel it. I can feel everything you feel." He wanted to reach out and caress her arm playing on her attraction to him, but the light side and gentleman in him made him keep his hands to himself. "You know I can take whatever I want."  
"I'm not giving you anything." She glared up at him, unafraid.  
"We'll see." He pulled the book from her hands and walked a few paces from her. "I suspect you have memorized it by now?"  
He flipped through the pages absentmindedly.  
"Cover to cover." She stood as tall as she could. He smiled when he saw her falter out of the corner of his eye. He was making her nervous.  
"Perhaps you would like to learn the rest of it?" He looked at her raising his eyebrows.  
"There's more?" Rey took a step closer to him. He felt her regret of this action. She was doing her best to stifle her excitement and curiosity, but it was a losing battle. She had connected to the force and to him now, there was no going back.  
"Of course, the light side does not hold all the answers as it claims to."  
"You're talking about the dark side." She began to move away from him.  
"I'm talking about balance." Ben snapped. "I'm talking about the Grey Jedi."  
Rey looked at him skeptically.  
"How do I know I can trust you?" She sounded more afraid than she looked. Ben hoped she wasn't just talking about the force.  
"You can feel it." He removed his glove on his right hand slowly, almost hesitantly. Ben closed the space between them carefully, not breaking eye contact. He swore she moved closer to him as well. He reached down to her left hand and brushed his rough calloused fingers against hers. It was electric, this small touch. Rey's mouth opened slightly as the bond vibrated their minds roughly. He felt her. All of her. He felt her pain and loneliness choke the air from him and his eyes filled with tears. He felt her love for her sisters and her confusion about being force sensitive. Rey's mind was his to explore and he felt her inside his too.  
First, she felt his darkness, and his despise for his parents. She looked deeper however and found his abandonment and terror from being left alone so often. She moved around his layers of frustration with his uncle and their lack of understanding one another. Rey moved through his mind clumsily, but gently. He had given her the key to his consciousness and she moved cautiously and delicately. She was afraid to hurt him, or maybe to unearth something she couldn't forgive. When she came upon his memories of her she saw what he saw, felt what he felt. She saw her beauty and power. Her intelligence. She could feel her power and her natural connection to the force.  
"Sorry, for breaking up the party." A detached feminine voice rang in Ben's ears and he felt Rey's hand pull back from his and with it, the honest connection between them.  
"Jyn, what are you doing here?"  
"Dad sent the carriage, said he doesn't care how sick Padme was, he doesn't want her sick away from her parents." The youngest of the girls strode into the barn looking Ben up and down. "Sounds to me though like he didn't want the two of you hanging around here much longer, can't imagine why…"  
Rey looked down ashamed, but Ben just glared down at this outspoken young woman. She was talking about things she had no business in, things she wouldn't understand. Couldn't understand.  
"Come on, let's get your stuff." She grabbed Rey's hand and led her out of the barn. Rey turned back to look at him for only a half a second before disappearing with her sister. Ben gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Leave it to old Ben Kenobi to break them apart just when he was getting through to her. He wouldn't have his way if Ben had anything to say about it. He returned to the house quickly and grabbed a book on the Grey Jedi and a smaller text explaining the dark side and its place in the world of the Jedi. Rey had been apprehensive about him even mentioning the dark side, so he figured the smaller volume was the way to go.  
He reached the carriage just as Rey was attaching her last trunk to the back. She wore a furrowed brow and was deep in agitated contemplation when he reached her.  
"Miss Kenobi." Ben greeted quietly as he slipped the books around her from behind. She froze at his closeness. He felt her breath catch. He too held his breath as he waited to see if she would take to books from him.  
Finally, the weight of the books was lifted from his hands and she slipped them into a sack tied to the back of the carriage. He followed her round to the side of the transport.  
"Master Skywalker, Mr. Cassian." Rey curtsied to them both then turned to him and bowed with no greeting. This was perhaps her attempt to distance herself from him. Ben wouldn't have it, not after what they had shared in the barn. He took her hand and helped her into the carriage, not once breaking eye contact.  
She stared at him in shock at his admittedly presumptuous behavior, but he dismissed it and turned to walk back to the estate. As he walked he flexed his hand outward in an attempt to not lose himself to the anxiety that followed holding her small hand in his.

Rey  
Rey hid the books in her room when they returned. She knew how her father felt about the Jedi and did not want to try to make him understand. She was a force sensitive, she had a force bond (for better or worse) with Ben Solo, a man her father had specifically asked her to stay away from. But how could she stay away from someone she had a direct line to any time of the day everywhere she went?  
She made her way down stairs, she wanted to check on her sister whose room was on the second floor but was summoned by her father as she passed his study.  
"Rey, dear, do come in." Her father looked up form a map he had laid out on his desk to stare her down.  
She walked in.  
"Close the door please." He sat down as she did as he asked. "How was your stay with the Jedi?"  
"It was … eventful." Rey chose her words carefully. She always did have a hard time lying to her father.  
"And how are you feeling?" He folded his hands on top of his chest, looking at her intently.  
"I'm fine, a little drained from the journey, but I was just worried about Padme. She took ill so fast and I-"  
"Your sister will be fine, I am only glad to see you both back home where you belong. I have missed our morning walks and scrap metal searches."   
He smiled warmly at Rey, but she could tell he was still searching for something behind her eyes. It reminded her of the way that Ben Solo had searched her mind many times, but far less invasive. Her father knew her so well he didn't need the force to search her mind. All he needed was eye contact and a half hours conversation over tea and she would be discovered.  
"I have too father, but I would really like to go check on Padme." Rey needed a way out. She could feel herself slipping, he would see she was withholding the truth soon.  
"Of course, of course, but I expect us to be back on our regular regimen tomorrow morning." He stood giving her the go ahead to abort herself out of his study. Rey scrambled to her feet and began to back away, afraid to break eye contact and afraid to keep looking into her father's point-blank gaze.  
"Of course, I would love that."  
And the next day at dawn she was shaken awake by a firm hand and was instructed that they were getting a late start as it was. She would not have time to eat.  
Rey's father had always been a stickler for her and her sisters' regimen. Padme would be up studying with the morning light. Jyn was often disassembling blaster after blaster, only to clean them and put them back together. Rey was up before light with her father nearly every morning hiking along the steep dunes, the sun scorching her skin and gifting her with permanent tan lines.   
She hiked along this early morning as the sun was barely a creeping orange shade on the horizon. Her father was silent as usual as they moved along the wild land. She had loved growing up like this. She remembered being only at the age of five and her father waking her and putting her on the back of their blue speeder and rushing her off to the dessert to run and jump. He showed her how to sort scraps, and Rey was a quick study. By the time she was nine years old she was crawling down shafts of abandoned star destroyers to salvage power cufflinks, copper wiring, electron stabilizers, and everything else she could get her hands on. Growing up like that had been heaven. But this familiar silence felt different now. She wasn't just not talking with her father, she was not talking about Ben Solo to her father and what he had revealed to her.  
Reys freckled nose pinched at the thought of Mr. Solo. He was such an arrogant self-righteous laser brain. He couldn't take no for an answer. How many times had he reprimanded her for not having "a teacher." Like she didn't see straight through that line. She knew what he, and most men, wanted from her. Just because he was a high-born Jedi Knight he thought he could just have her. He had pushed his lustful thoughts into her head and when he was caught he had tucked his tail between his legs and turned the shade of the red sands of the south.  
She had taken the books form him though. Something about this whole force bond, whatever it was, had created a compassionate part of her heart for Ben Solo to fester in. He had set up shop there and showed no sign of leaving. And Rey couldn't deny, part of her liked having him there in the back of her mind. It made her feel less alone. Loneliness was easy to come by on a planet such as this and Rey was no stranger to it.  
"There. Just past that ridge line, one of our droids spotted a large freighter carcass. I refused to go there while you were away though, I knew you would never forgive me for salvaging any of it without you." Her fathers brow was barely touched by sweat, Rey however was sweating profusely. It may have been the nerves though.  
"Okay. Thank you." Rey huffed out, she hadn't hidden her detachment well, but her father either was too excited to notice or had ignored her tone and moved on.  
As they neared the ridgeline Rey felt her legs strain in exhaustion, her weeks away had caused her to lose some of her endurance. Yet another horrendous outcome of her time spent with Solo.  
"You never told me what it was like being around the Knights? Did it peak your curiosity, I know you have always been interested in those wizards and their ways." Her father wasn't a small talker, she knew he was asking how much time she had spent with Mr. Solo.  
"I avoided Mr. Solo the best I could, father. It wasn't as big of a house as I required to do so unfortunately." The honesty felt good. Rey felt lighter already.  
"And when you couldn't avoid him what did you two speak of?" He was being less discrete now. Rey appreciated his bluntness, but the topic was to be tread lightly.  
"He told me once or twice how I was very inferior to him and I believe he insulted me in nearly every way possible. Our conversations were short lived father." Rey thought back to the kitchen at Anakin's estate. How Ben had stood so close to her at the counter. She remembered being intimidated, but she also remembered that he smelled so nice. It was hard to be angry with a man when he smelled like freshness itself.   
It had been the last straw though when he had spoken of pleasure. She was still angry with him toying with their bond exposing her to his lack of control and sexual hunger. The first night at dinner she had felt so guilty and when he had alluded to her not feeling well she had felt even more embarrassed. She didn't feel guilty for being turned on, but she did feel shocked when she thought he had been caught. For him to bring it up again, and while looking her up and down with those dark endless eyes… he had been asking for what he got.   
Rey smiled when she remembered the ease in which she had thrown him using only her mind. Holding him against the counter had been more work, more concentration…but had most definitely been worth it. Had she not sealed her want-to-be tutor he may have come after her with his lightsaber. Or he may have gone in for a hug. Rey remembered seeing a distinct look of pride behind the anger and pain in his eyes as she walked out. Ben liked how powerful she was. Perhaps that was what turned him on about her, the fact that she would fight him back if she felt the need. Not that she cared what turned him on.  
Rey brushed a piece of her sweat soaked hair behind her ear as she and her father sank slowly back into silence. He seemed satisfied with her answers so far, she hoped there would be no follow ups.  
"After we return your mother has some work for you, but when you've finished I have a few new gadgets for you to toy with in the workshop." This was music to Rey's ears, it felt good to be back on schedule. Her father seemed to know from a young age that Rey needed to be kept busy. She needed to be constantly challenged, mentally and physically, to thrive. "Also, I forgot to tell you, but your second cousin is on leave in the system from The Resistance and I offered for him to stay with us. You remember Poe Dameron?"  
Rey barely remembered her cousin. All she knew was that he was the star fighter pilot for General Organa. Rey was surprised they would let her hot-headed cousin out of their sight for a moment, let alone on an extended leave on a distant planet. But her worries and thoughts about the men in her life left her head quickly as she reached the large abandoned freighter. She spent hours combing the ship and its inner workings letting her mind buzz and build as she dissected the marvelously complex piece of machinery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hid so many Pride and Prejudice easter eggs in here. Let me know if you can find them;)


	6. Full Hearts and Busy Brains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben cannot figure out why Rey being back home has dimmed the bond. He suspects a Jedi mind trick is involved and confronts Rey's father. Poe is being forced on Rey by her match maker mother, but neither party seems that interested. A little glimpse into the Jyn/Cassian sub plot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry its short and for the late update, but I was getting a little lost on where it was going. I've got a clear vision now though. So, that said. Be prepared for an increase in characters. Some Rey and Ben action (violence and other wise) and some extra sub plot details. You'll be seeing much more of Padme/Ani and Jyn/Cassian through Rey and Ben's perspective soon!

Rey  
Back on her normal schedule, Rey wore a constant smile of contentment and wonder. She was back to building and tweaking blasters, speeders, and other mechanically themed materials all day. She was getting up every morning with her father exploring the sands. Her mind and body were exhausted by the time she finally set to sleep. Her physical distance from Mr. Solo had quieted the bond somewhat, but she could still feel him constantly exploring the bond. He was not intrusive, he stayed in appropriate places and observed gentlemanly behavior, or as gentlemen like as he could be while probing her mind. He seemed to be very interested in the middle of the tether. She would feel him mentally strike at it as if to see how much he could bend it without breaking. Breaking the bond however seemed like an impossible task. All Rey read about in the books she had been given stated that it was nearly impossible without the death of one of those bonded. But even then, bits of the Jedi would remain with their force bound partner.  
The books Rey read at night, fighting hard against exhausted eyes and muscles as she turned page after page, never failed to inspire more questions with their answers. She could not explain how she had not been found by the Jedi order and taken away for training. Rey thanked her lucky stars this hadn't happened, but still wondered how it had not. The way Mr. Solo had acted when he spoke to her about the force, he sounded as though something had been stolen from him. The thought of this made Rey seethe. She didn't like the fact that he seemed to think of her power as his to wield, train, mold, or whatever it was a teacher was supposed to do with a padawan. She didn't even know she had power until weeks ago and he had already minded it as his own.  
According to the small book on the dark side, it was more of a journal rather, the force bond was not a bad thing. It had been compared to an ancient lore of a red string of fate connecting two people destined to find one another. This could be for power, training in the force, fated destinies, and soul mates. The journal had been kept by a young force user who had chosen to live in solitude exploring the dark side through meditation. His hand writing was beginning to fade on some pages but was tidy and easy to read. His approach to the dark side seemed much calmer than the way the book on the light side of the force had presented it.  
Rey hoped with all of her will that the force bond was not as permanent as the books had said, but as she fell asleep at night and often thought of Ben Solo the bond became clearer and stronger. She didn't mean to use it, or maybe some part of her did, but Rey swore when she concentrated hard enough she could feel Bens soft breath on her cheek as he slept miles away.

Ben  
He didn't know whether or not to be happy the scavenger had left the estate. The light side of him thanked the situation for giving him the ease and steadiness of a home without Rey walking about in her tight athletic pants and her hair always smelling like salt water and coconut. The dark side of him kept him awake at night. His desire for her, if only to look her over and over and over again with his eyes, was driving him crazy. Ben's dark side also often prickled with anger and frustration knowing her father could be brain washing her this very moment. He felt solace in the fact that he felt no change in her across the bond. No, the same distance from him in her mind and vague dislike, sometimes anger towards him flashed across the bond, but no hypnotic Jedi mind tricks from her father roughed their waters. Ben had heard from master Luke that mind control had been one of Obi-won's specialties.  
Ben meditated on the bond often, but he feared pushing to far. He wanted to understand it, but he knew if he was too close to something sensitive, which for Rey seemed to be everything, he would only lose her more. He was working on a plan to get Rey to come back to him, but it needed to be played out correctly. He couldn't, as much as he wanted to, break down her door and throw her over his shoulder dragging her to some remote planet to train her. Ben had fantasized about this more than once. Getting her alone seemed to be what he had missed most. It was never not exciting talking to this strange desert girl. Sure, he had been knocked around a few times by her, but the way she spoke, the way the bond danced around them whenever they were close had made every bruise and cracked rib worth it. Now he just had to find a way to get her alone without being injured or losing control over himself.  
His dreams at night were perhaps the most haunting thing of her absence. She kept channeling him as she tried, to no avail, to sleep. Even in the deepest of dreams he would feel her presence. He dared not touch her again after his first offence through their bond, but he swore once maybe twice he had felt a pair of pink dainty lips brush against his in the night. He would wake expecting her there but was rewarded with a cold sweat and a throbbing groin.  
He was humiliated after a dream he had of his student had made him come in his sleep. Ben had sworn he had not started the dream, but he had no ground to stand on when it came to gladly partaking in it. Rey had been trying for sleep that night, once or twice pushing her anxiety into his head waking him. Finally, he had felt across the bond her mind give into sleep all at once. Her subconscious had floated close to his that night. He remembered feeling warmer the closer she got. His whole body was waking up in the hungriest of ways, he swore he could feel her skin against his.  
He felt he grow more curious in her sleep. He knew she didn't know what she was exploring, only that it felt good. Ben could see that she was unaware of the affect she was having on him as he faded in and out of sleep, but he was not about to make the effort to push her away. Ha hadn't the will power to do so as she wound him tighter and tighter. His own hand had rubbed himself instinctually, but he pulled his hand away guiltily as he thought of the first time he had explored this part of the bond. Her pleasure rocked through his mind as he realized she had awoke somewhat moaning, he could hear her. She was quiet and frustrated as she moaned in his mind.  
He felt her waves of desperation as she began to rub herself roughly. There was no delicacy or romance in the way she roughed herself up, he could feel that she was moving without reason, raising and lowering her hips urgently. He could not see her, but somehow, he knew in that shared part of their minds that she was doing this. He felt her come across the bond, her orgasm exploded in his mind causing him to wake from the dream like trance she had unwittingly put him under. He felt himself come quickly and urgently as he grunted through the bludgeoning experience.  
From that night on he was on high alert, keeping more distance between their bond than he liked. He feared his plans to turn her would be at stake if she knew he had been there the other night, granted lured in by her, but able to leave anytime.  
With Rey at this unwanted distance Ben felt her absence cause him more anguish than before. Now he was nearly alone in his mind, something he had thought he missed, but knew now that he would not feel whole without her ever again. It was a haunting thought.  
Anakin had been missing Padme, it seemed as well. He was in the midst of planning a ball to get her to return to his home, no doubt with her family in tow. This would mean Ben could see Rey again and soon if Cassian had anything to say about it. He had been in constant communication with the youngest of the Kenobi's. He most likely thought he was being discrete about it, but when he thought no one was looking he would often disappear in the direction of the Kenobi house and not return for many hours. Ani didn't seem to notice, but then he had also suspected Ben of being in love with Rey. His inner compass was in need of some fine tuning.  
Ben had decided that he would use Rey's soon destroyed relationship with her father to manipulate her into leaving with him. From there he would take her to master Luke, she would surely be so untrusting of everyone she encountered. After that she would beg stay with the Jedi she was forever bound to, him. He would take her away, perhaps to the islands of Naboo and train her there. He thought she would like it there. It was warm and beautiful, and most important it would be far away from this force forsaken planet. She would be free to be who she was meant to be. Ben couldn't help but smile as he thought of her potential and her power. When she finally learned to control her connection to the force, they would be able to explore the bond further. They would uncover so many things together, Ben knew this as though he had dreamt it in a vision of the future.  
As Ben walked, his head held high and his steps heavy, he thought of Rey. He hesitantly reached out to her, something was off. She was more distant than he remembered. It was as if there was a cloudy haze irritating their bond. She could be unwell, or in danger… Ben feared it was her father's mind tricks at work. Ben stomped down the hall in a tantrum like state when he came across Cassian.  
"You." Ben blurted out and stormed towards the pilot.  
"Me." Cassian rolled his eyes as he turned to face Ben.  
"You are going to her, aren't you?"  
"I don't know what-" Ben hadn't the patience for this, his connection to Rey was at stake. Ben instinctually clamped on Cassian's throat using the force.  
"What girl… I ask, could be so infatuating to you, pilot? It couldn't be a Kenobi girl could it?"  
Cassian stared into Ben's eyes unafraid, looking rather irritated though. Leave it to this jaded pilot of Ani's to be unafraid of a force choke hold.  
"Take me with you, I need to speak with Ben Kenobi." Cassian choke out a yes and was released.  
He rubbed his throat as he mumbled something about people skills under his breath.

Rey  
The morning she had been dreading had finally arrived. Their second cousin Poe Dameron, a hot headed by the seat of his pants type pilot, would be arriving soon. Rey had had her fill of self-involved types after her weeks spent with Mr. Solo.  
When Mr. Dameron had first arrived all he could seem to speak of was his commanding general, Leia Organa. He claimed that he had a special bond with her and that not even her own council was held higher in her opinion than he. He delivered these delicate self-compliments through chattered on jokes and war stories. Rey did have to admit she did find his stories of all the far-off places he had flown to be very exciting. She wanted to see the things he spoke of, not just picture them in her mind.  
"Rey, I see you have a workshop. Anything interesting brewing out there?" Poe asked charmingly.  
"No, not much brewing here, we do have a nice dual engine speeder with a sand filtration screen over the intake valve, well at least we are working on that." Rey was equally put off and intrigued by the pilot. His ego was in competition with their new Jedi neighbors, but his genuine interest in her hobbies and his colorful life in The Resistance made up for it almost completely.  
"What are you talking about, I would say that's something!"  
"Poe should give you a hand in the shop, dear." Rey cringed at her mother's unwelcome interjection. The shop was her and her father's place, visitors were not welcome. She looked at her father.  
"No, I wouldn't want to intrude." Poe offered, but Rey's mothers match making skills were set on overdrive, even if he was a second cousin. Rey felt sick.  
"I do believe we are really in for the ringer this time round." Rey's father whispered to her under his breath. Rey smiled stifling a laugh.  
Poe was at the shop waiting for her when she and her father returned the next morning from exploring the sands for parts. No such luck that morning so the walk back had been quick with the absent weight of spare parts and rare metals. Rey, though not nearly as exhausted as she was after a day of finds, was still tired. Tired and sun burned on her nose. She really wasn't in the mood for a mechanics interaction with a strange cousin her mother was trying to make her break the laws of nature with.  
"I see you had an early start." He smiled at her widely.  
"Yes- well, not all of us are on vacation."  
"Oh I'm not just on vacation." Poe followed her into the large shop. Rey drank form her cantina indecorously, but Poe didn't seem to notice.  
"Then why are you here." She sighed rather than asked. Rey hoisted herself up on the work bench allowing her tired legs to rest weightlessly.  
"I'm here for your father."  
"And what does that mean?" She stared at him blankly.  
"General Organa wants him back, fighting the good fight, working with the Jedi side by side. Luke Skywalker wants him back too."  
"Why? How could he even help?" Rey knew her father had worked with Mr. and Mrs. Solo, that's how she had ended up with Ben falling in her lap, or rather her head. But that wasn't enough to be some kind of world ending military strategist.  
"Do you not know of all the legendary things your father did during the Clone War? During the days of Palpatine?"   
"I know he was a part of a team that worked directly against the Empire." Rey was worried now by how much Poe was excited about her father's war efforts. How could a strategist deserve this degree of praise? And to be asked back by the General? Who was her father during the war? She was beginning to think she didn't know.  
Padme walked into the shop before she could ask anymore questions.  
"Mother wants to know if you would like to take Poe to see the suns set in the western hills this evening?" Padme grinned at Rey's red and sickened face. Her mother was not letting up. Just when she was starting to like Poe, her mother was making her hate him.  
"Tell mother that I am busy tonight." Rey was, she wanted to try meditating on some verses in the light book.  
"Yes, and I was hoping to take your father out for drinks tonight."  
"I'll let you two tell her that, I'm not getting my hair ripped out cause you two have social lives." Padme walked out passively.  
"I'll tell your mother myself, I don't want you getting in trouble." Poe began to back out, but remained looking at her. "If anyone asks this is all my fault."  
Perhaps he cousin was not as bad as she had feared.  
Rey began to work on some attachments to her staff. She wanted to add a trigger on certain motions for the ends to emit a wave of electric shock to whomever she came to blows with. However, the timing on the shock delivery was off and was not hitting her target at the time of impact. Her frustration grew, which only made her work harder. Rey's father had instilled a sense of patience in her, though it faltered sometimes, mostly in front of Ben Solo, it was iron clad when she was at work.  
If a spark blew while she worked, she would only inch closer and move more methodically. In the face of failure, Rey had always been able to rally. As her mind wrote mental equations and she visually took apart the physical problems in the motion sensor she was only disturbed by the faint sound of footsteps walking past the open workshops garage door. No one was there when she looked up and she eagerly returned to her work. Until her stomach began to growl.  
Inside Rey was walking to the kitchen when the sound of men arguing filled her ears. It was her father and someone… someone familiar. Rey walked quickly to her father's study, where the yelling was coming from. She stopped by the small library where natural light bathed two figures holding hands and gazing into one another's eyes. Rey stopped and stared. Her younger sister and Cassian Andor released their hold on one another upon seeing her. Jyn looked embarrassed. Cassian only stared her down, begging her with his eyes not to say anything. Rey nodded at him conceding to his wish.  
The doors to the study burst open and Mr. Solo emerged wearing his trademark all black get up. His Jedi cloak flowing behind him as he stormed passed her. Her father walked coolly out of his office arms crossed. Rey looked at him. He, like Solo, looked past her allowing no eye contact. She thought she should stay, but something inside her heart pulled her after Ben.  
"Mr. Solo! Mr. Solo!" Rey called out as she chased Ben across their front porch and out the stretch of dusty lane leading off their property. "Hey! SOLO!"  
Ben stopped suddenly then turned much more aggressively than she had ever seen.  
"Do not!" He yelled. "Do not call me that."  
"It's your name isn't it." He turned away from her. "Why did you come to see my father?"  
"I thought maybe…" He stopped.  
"Maybe what?" He was holding her back again across the bond. He had a better control over it that her and was easily able to deflect her mind probe.  
"Perhaps you should keep mind of you own business and follow your own advice." He began to walk away from her. "Stay out of my head."  
He quoted her in a toneless eerie way. It made her skin crawl and her head buzz with un answered questions. Rey watched him go wordlessly. Ben had crossed so many lines with her. He had investigated her mind without her knowing. He had played with her attraction towards him through the bond. He had been disrespectful and out to get her from their first meeting. But for some reason his plea for her to stay out of his head rang with genuine concern and care. He had said it in defense of himself no doubt, but she could tell he was trying to protect her from something. The same thing she suspected he had been hiding from her during their fight in Anakin's kitchen. Rey couldn't bring herself to push. She cared that he wanted to be left alone, even after he had charged her home and confronted her father. Rey hated herself for the compassion she had for him. But what was done was done, Rey had Ben in her heart as well as her head, and there seemed to be no cure in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think and what you'd like to see!


	7. Omens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Jyn and Cassian are up to who knows what. Trouble in paradise for Ani and Padme, as usual. Rey is asking more and more questions because what else is she going to do. Ben has his plan in place as to how he will expose Obi-won, he also figures out how Rey has been safe from the Jedi for so long.

My mind would rule my heart,  
I didn't pay attention to the light in the dark  
It left me torn apart  
-"Omens" by Sam Smith

 

Ben  
*Two days earlier*  
Ben stared through the open doors of the workshop. All his energy focused on two things. Blocking his presence through the force from both Rey and her father. And the pleasure it brought him to see the sun reflect gold off every part of Rey's body. Her skin shone and sparkled tinted with warmth from both tan and temperature. Her hair, though still the warm honey chestnut color, suddenly glowed with natural sun spelled highlights.  
Just seeing her was enough to sooth him. Most of Ben's anger and paranoia had faded simply by hearing her focused breath in the otherwise silent work shop. As she tinkered her eyes never left her project. He wondered what it would be like to have her eyes so focused and serene while looking at him. He wanted to be the cause of her flushed warm skin while she stared at him in passionate stillness. He wanted her. In every way. In every position. At all times. He wanted to be her Master, her teacher, and god he wanted to march in there and bend her over her workshops' table.  
His hold on the force quivered under this distraction. Before Rey could look up he was storming into the Kenobi's home at the heel of Cassian who had actually been invited in. Before Jyn and he began to walk from him Ben snapped, harsher than he had intended, but he didn't detect any hurt from the hardened face of the youngest Kenobi.  
"Where is your father?" Ben's eyes were cold and deep.  
"In his study, second floor to the left." Jyn shrugged starchily and pulled Cassian down the hall by his hand. He followed her with a mischievous grin. Ben shuddered at what this implied.  
Ben nearly broke his hand with his tightly wound fists as he stomped up the stairs of the less than modern home. He nearly broke down the door to the study. He shut it loudly using the force as he stared down at a sitting Obi-won. He was reading with a pipe smoking in his mouth. He looked up, unthreatened by Bens extreme entrance.  
"So uncivilized." Old Ben shook his head and placed the pipe on his desk puffing out a sweet-scented smoke.  
"Uncivilized? Proud words from a man brainwashing his daughter."  
"Back on about this are we? I told you Ben, my family is my concern." The old Jedi's accent was thick with vagueness and pride.  
"Times up, Kenobi. You've been hogging Rey to yourself all these years, time to share." Ben moved closer to his name-sake who stood up right. He was not as tall as Ben, not many men were, but his shining eyes and proud stance did keep Ben from moving too close.  
"My daughter is not a piece of something that you have claim over. She is a young woman."  
"A young woman who has been kept from her right to be trained as a Jedi!" Ben yelled.  
"A young woman who had the right to grow up happy. She grew up free. You're Jedi training may have made you powerful, Ben, but it robbed you of something so much more important." Obi-won was still calm. It only made Ben grow angrier. How could he still dismiss the way he had ruined his daughters place. Her place as a Jedi. Her place by his side as his student.  
"You seem to think you know it all, old man. But the real truth will be out soon enough. Already your daughter is looking for answers. She comes to me every night in her dreams. Begging for me to teach her the ways of the force." Ben sneered as he through his connection to Rey in her father's face. Obi-won's face twisted with disgust and rage.  
"You dare speak of my daughter in this way. She won't have anything to do with you." Obi-won walked around his desk dangerously close to Ben now. "I have put every moment of my life since she was born into keeping her safe from brainwashed men like you!"  
"Yes, let's discuss that shall we? What exactly have you been doing to keep your daughter from the force. You shield yourself from it, I feel that as much, but how have you kept her from it. She radiates with the strength of the force. Her connection is raw, natural, untamed."  
"No need to tame what can be drowned out easily."  
"Drowned out? So you have been brain washing her."  
"I would never do anything of the sort."  
"Then how have you kept her from what calls her so strongly?" Ben growled.  
"When strength of body and mind are present there is nothing that calls so strongly." Obi-won yelled.  
Ben calmed at this. He realized then, that Obi-won had not been extinguishing his daughter's abilities… he had simply redirected them.

Rey  
Rey's burned body ached in the sun. Her mother had claimed she needed her father home to assist her around the house. So when Rey awoke to go scouting alone she was intercepted by a bright eyed and eager looking Poe.  
"I understand you are in need of a partner in crime?" He had grinned at her so happily she couldn't help but bring him along.  
Poe had proven useful. He could lift heavy materials. His stamina was perfect for the long morning of lugging around scraps. But he was a huge conversationalist. Rey was not used to the chattering in the early mornings. Her father was a man who valued comfortable silence. He valued focus and had instilled this in her at a young age.   
"Focus is key, Rey. One cannot achieve peace in mind and spirit without it." He would tell her as child.   
She had adopted this wholeheartedly. She had been taught discipline. She had been taught hard work. She had learned how to use her exuberant amounts of energy to get things done. What she had not been taught was how to use that energy to manufacture small talk.  
"You love it out here don't you?" He asked as she sat on the burning sand.  
"Um, yes." Rey's eyes squinted in the bright sun.  
"It's not a test question, Rey." Poe laughed as he plopped down beside her. "I can see it in your face when you walk. You're determined that's for sure, but you're also alive out here, Rey. I'd have to be blind not to see it."  
Rey looked at him shocked.  
"I guess I do." Rey looked out at the ongoing sandy hills of her planet. "I love the heat. It makes you work for what your want. Nothing comes easy out here."  
"Be nice if it was a little easier though." Poe leaned back burying his gloved hands in the burning sand.  
"Nothing comes easy." Rey quoted her father.  
"Not everything has to be hard." Poe nudged her slightly. The friendly gesture made her smile hesitantly. Poe sighed.  
"Listen. I know your mother is trying to push us together, in one way or another, I don't judge, but you should know I would never expect anything from you." Rey looked at him. She was shocked and yet appreciative of Poe's honesty.  
"Thanks." Rey pulled her knees to her chest.  
"Besides, I hate to disappoint your mother, but you're not exactly my type." Rey looked at him knowingly as he winked. "But what's your type Rey?"  
"What do you mean?"  
"I mean that you may be a mechanic, but you're not a robot." Poe grinned at her.  
"I don't have time for that, or anything." Rey shook her head. She hadn't dated much, not just out of lack of time, but mostly lack of interest. She had not had sex because she had not wanted to with anyone she had met.  
"But what about now, you spent a lot of time with the new Jedi's in town, or so I hear. Nothing while you were there?" Rey thought of her first moments in Ani's home. How Ben had pushed his own sexual feelings into her head. How she had wanted him to touch her while simultaneously wanting him to leave her be. She hated the way she reacted to him. Hated the way she had dreamt of him on more than one occasion. She had, to her great shame, touched herself and thought of him.  
"Nothing of consequence." She said quietly.  
"Nothing at all?" He asked.  
"Nope." She lied.

Ben  
Ani's arrangements were coming together for the ball he had planned. He had the food organized. The invitations were sent out days ago. The music had been planned. And Ben had been measured for his dress robes. He had been fitted to a tux and bow tie suit with a long cloak like over coat. Ben hated getting dressed up. It reminded him of when he was a child and was dressed to the nines and forced to stay by his parent's side during diplomatic parties. He hated everything about it. The uncomfortable clothes. The slow-paced music. The stuffy atmosphere. But at least he would be able to see Rey.   
He had decided to tell her after the ball. He would tell her of her father's tactics in keeping her cut off from the force. He knew she would be as outraged as he when she found out that all her lessons and training in the desserts had been for the sake of keeping her from her true calling. But, he refused to embarrass her in front of her sisters. He did not want her to be forced to react in front of those she held closest to her. He did not wish her to be in pain, he only wished for the separation of her father and herself. He was draining her. And Ben knew he would never be able to touch her, nor hardly speak to her with Obi-won influencing her.  
Heavy steps thundered through the white marble halls as Ben stomped in the direction of Cassian Andor. He could sense he was in the garden. Focus was a thick aura around him.  
Ben appeared in the garden. Cassian sat before him cleaning his blaster on a stone bench.  
"I need you to ready transport for this week." Ben needed to be prepared for his and Rey's immediate departure.  
"Excuse me? Does Ani know about this?" Ben thought of Ani's attachment to Padme. The sooner he separated the two the better.  
"He doesn't need to know."  
"Listen here, Solo." Ben clenched his jaw at the use of his father's name. "I know you have these really twisted plans for you and the Kenobi girl, but Ani isn't going anywhere… and neither am I as a matter of fact. So that leaves you one escape plan short of a pilot." Cassian was so ignorant, Ben sneered.  
"You are misguided in your assumptions that I am in need of a pilot." Ben turned on his heels and left the low born man to his solitude.  
If he would not fly him and Rey to Naboo, then he would do it himself. Or perhaps he would give Rey the honor of flying them from this force-forsaken planet. He had heard from many that she was a very talented and experienced pilot. It made sense. Usually those gifted in the force were gifted in many skills as well, flying among them.  
Ben looked back over his shoulder to look at Cassian once more. He slipped his blaster into its hilt on his belt and he moved to gather a few white pedaled blooms from the garden. He was no doubt in route to the youngest Kenobi.  
He felt envy. He wished he had not entirely burned the bridge to Rey's home by getting into the fight with her father. But had he not engaged in such an angry way he would not have figured out the ways in which Rey was being manipulated. He knew though, because of her extensive training in focus and endurance, that she would be a quick study when he took her away. His heart ached at the thought of the pain that was about to befall her. He wished there was a way to get her to leave this sandy planet with him without damaging her. But what he had to do in life had never been easy.  
It hadn't been easy when his parents sent him off to become a Jedi and eventually a ambassador for his mother, a path for him she was still attempting to send him down. Thankfully, Ben was not a people person and that had so far kept him from having to become the politician his mother desired. It had not been easy to shut out the dark side around Luke, a master who though taught the ways of the grey Jedi was still harshly unforgiving to Ben any time he showed any connection to the dark side. It had not been easy for Ben to not see his parents. Not easy, but necessary. It was more painful to see their eyes fear his next move, reaction, or word whenever they interacted. He knew he had disappointed them. But they had disappointed him too.  
All Ben had wanted to do as a child was be an adventurer like his father. He did not wanted to be a criminal like him, but he did want the excitement and pride of exploring and maneuvering space adventures. His father, Han Solo, had lived such a full life. He had loved, ran, fought, cried, lived, gotten the girl, lost the girl, gotten her back, become a father… All Ben wanted was half of that fullness. But he had been condemned to an empty life. He had been taught control and power as a Jedi. He had been taught to put on a fake face for his mother and other politicians. His emptiness had created a warp of emotions. Ones he was not allowed to show or reveal as a Jedi, so they just festered. Often his only true self was revealed in the rage of combat, hence his outburst in the training room with Ani days before.  
He felt envy again. This time for Rey. She may be full of wild uncontrolled and unchecked emotions, but at least she knew how to process them. At least she knew that she could smile and be filled with joy when sunlight hit her face. At least she knew she could have an anxious outburst or throw him across a room in anger without the fear of her master disowning her. He would be her master. He would encourage control, but not to the extent of his Uncle Luke. He had extinguished and berated Ben's emotions throughout his training. Ben would be sure that Rey's passion, what Luke would call the dark side, was only livened by her training. This he promised her silently across the bond.

Rey  
The invitations came early one morning. It was a windy day do the brown enveloped was filled with about a pound of sand when her mother opened it. Mrs. Kenobi however didn't mind the mess of sand pouring out of the invite. She only cared what Padme would say to Anakin when she first saw him. The ball was in a week and according to Rey's mother that wasn't even half the time she needed to get the girls ready. Padme and her went off the next day to have her fitted for her gown, it was to be purple and white two of the most expensive and determined colors their mother could find.  
Jyn would wear her signature black, this time a dress not a tight semi-threatening body suit. Rey figured she would find something off the rack, rather than be fitted, but to her surprise her Father interjected.  
"You will not be the only daughter of mine not dressed in the finest way possible. You are a Kenobi, Rey, time you start dressing like one." He winked at her frowning face. "You will go with your sister into town tomorrow to find a gown. Take Padme with you two. I'll distract your mother."  
And so it was. Rey and her two sisters walked to town in search of Jyn and Rey's ball attire. Padme had already been fitted to her gown and so she brought a book to keep her company, something on parliament and voting rights of in-humans. Rey wished she could bring the books Ben had given her. She had read all of them now at least three times, but still felt there was something missing. Something she was to find out. But as much as she read between the lines, she could not figure it.  
Padme spoke with the seamstress about Rey's gown after she and Jyn had been measured. Rey had selected some grey and silver material. She asked for a simple design, but she assumed Padme was livening up her request for their mother sake. Rey moved to the outside of the shop to find Jyn. She looked worried, sad, but all over in love.   
"Alright, come out with it. The pilot was just here wasn't he?" Rey looked around, it was as if she could sense the pilot was near.  
"I don't know what you're talking about." Jyn stood taller looking her sister dead in the eye. Jyn had always been a good sneak, but never a good liar.  
"Toss off, I know he was here. What were you two talking about?"  
"Rey." Jyn turned around, her tone warning. There was a puddle of white flowers at her feet like someone had just thrown and left them there to be trampled.  
"I'm serious! I saw you two, you can't hide it from me." Rey walked to her sister. "If you two want to be together don't let mother stop you! I know she wants us all with high born Jedi's or whatever, but you have to stand up for yourself. For yourself and Cassian!"  
"There are bigger things at work here, Rey." Jyn looked scared again.  
"What has you, my fearless rebel scum sister, so frightened." Rey looked sadly at her sister. Her mother couldn't be the thing causing this anxiety. Her sister knew something she didn't. "You can tell me, I'm your sister."  
"You'll find out soon enough." Jyn looked back at her with great sympathy and sadness.  
"What are you two on about?" Padme called from behind them.  
"Nothing. Just waiting for your slow ass." Jyn said.  
The walk home had Rey scowling. She could see that Cassian and Jyn were connecting. And Rey was happy for him and her, but she was more than unhappy with the cryptic message her sister had left her with. Jyn had always been the silent strong type, but she didn't keep secrets from her sisters. They were too close for that.  
But now with Cassian in the picture Jyn had become much more secretive. She didn't want their mother to know, and Rey understood that. Rey didn't want her mother pushing her towards her gay cousin. Padme, as much as she was head over heels for Ani, didn't want their mother dropping less than subtle hints of a June wedding in her Jedi's lap. And, oh their mother would have some hints to drop about Cassian. Judgments on poor manners, low born class, overall cleanliness of appearance, ect. She wanted her daughters to marry well, not happy.  
And what was Rey going to find out? Jyn knew something Rey didn't, but then again Rey knew a lot that Jyn didn't. Things about her being force sensitive. Everything she had learned from the sacred texts. Things she had learned from Ben.  
The sound of hooves pounding against sand made Rey look up from her focused gaze on the back of Jyn's head.  
"Ladies, we were just on the way to your home." Ani called out from his larger than life Fathier he rode. Behind him on another Fathier was Mr. Solo. He wore an expression of absolute contempt as he gazed down at the three sisters. His focus though, avoided Rey's eyes. That was strange. Perhaps he had moved on from his obsession with her. Rey felt her heart sink slightly at the thought of Ben no longer finding her worth his while in the ways of the force. But, she reminded herself that she had not wanted him in the first place. He had been hardly tolerable to her since day one. Why should she feel disappointment for the loss of his captivation?  
Rey gathered her pride and began to push through the bond experimentally. She had not intentionally tried this before, so her maneuvers were much more sloppy and unexperienced than she had intended. He noticed her searching his mind. His eyes flickered her way quickly, barely noticeable, and just as quickly as he lost her concentrated gaze she felt him slip. Across the bond she unlocked two emotions radiating strongly from him. Conflict. This was nothing new. Ben was in a constant state of conflict, a balancing of scales. Light vs dark. But what came next was pure and unmistakable guilt. Guilt for what?  
"What for?" Padme grinned at her suitor.  
"Well to discuss events at the ball of course." Padme's grin disappeared.  
"Perhaps I could have a moment alone with you, Ani." Ani too stopped smiling and dismounted his Fathier, followed by Ben.  
The couple walked a few paces away from the rest of the group, just enough to be out of ear shot.  
"Miss Rey, Miss Kenobi." Ben bowed his head respectfully.  
"Solo." Jyn clenched her jaw. Rey froze. She remembered Ben's reaction to her calling him that. But, Ben simply glared at her younger sister.  
"I assume we will see the both of you at the ball." Mr. Solo attempted decormum. Since when did he care for social niceties?  
"Yes, I understand it will be a very important event." Jyn's eyes narrowed, Rey swam in her unanswered questions.  
"Yes, Mr. Solo, thank you for the invitation. Most balls around here lack to prestige and importance of Jedi hosts." Rey sneered at his pride and arrogance.  
"Yes well, this planet lacks fine jewels and grace…" Ben looked her intently in the eyes. "But makes up for it in beautiful engaging company."  
Rey felt blush run to her face. She wasn't sure if she was blushing for being angered by his lack of hurt from her sarcasm or the compliment itself. Jyn scoffed.  
"I have high hopes for the company as well." Her sister's eyes narrowed even more. She looked as though she were on the verge of attack when a miserable looking Ani and Padme reentered their area.  
"Ben, we should be on our way." Ani muttered as he re-saddled his Fathier.  
The two men left the women in the sand. Rey had so many questions she couldn't hold it in.  
"Okay what the fuck is going on?" Rey blurted out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. I promise next chapter will have better one on one moments between Rey and Ben. This chapter was more of a foreshadowing type thing, very important and also just really fun to write. What do you guys think Jyn and Cassian are up to? I want to know if I'm playing their end game to obvious.


	8. An Assembly Such as This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we get to the good stuff. It's ball time fellas! Ben's Plan is coming up, all he has to do is get Rey to trust him enough for the news he is going to break to her. Obi-wan, he's coming for you. Rey is in literal shock the whole chapter pretty much. What is it about public balls that always bring so much drama to the table? Private ones are much more intimate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me some Kudo's if you are so inclined and join the comments and conversation. I love to hear what you think is going to happen next.

PPIS Chapter 8: An assembly such as this

Rey  
So many unanswered questions. It had been days since her outburst in the desert. She was done with her sister's secrets and had finally blown up about it.  
All it had gotten her was a chastisement from Padme on proper etiquette and inappropriate language.  
"Rey! That's not appropriate in slightest and you do not need to know everything! What happens between Ani and me is our business and ours alone." Padme's eyes could have burned through Rey, they were blazing with so much rage.  
And from Jyn she received nothing more than a shake of the head and silence. She had actually been practically missing until the day of the ball. Rey hadn't seen much more than the distant view of her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail a few mornings. Rey would try to catch Jyn before her morning run, but she always managed to slip out before Rey could get past her father and his plans for their hike.  
And now that Jyn had resurfaced to get ready for the ball, Rey couldn't ask her anything in the presence of their mother and father. As Mrs. Kenobi laced up Padme's corset to an impossibly tight noose, Mr. Kenobi ran a brush through Rey's hair. She sat in the seat at her oldest sister's vanity for Padme's large room was the perfect size for the whole family to prep the girls for the ball. As she gazed into the mirror though she was not admiring her father's hand work with her sun-streaked hazel locks, she was eying her younger sister.  
Jyn's hair was in two loose long hanging braids. Her bangs and shorter layers created a mystic around her dark eyes. And her dress cloaked her slim athletic build, hanging off her sharp shoulders by two very slim straps. The length of the dress was conservative, covering all her legs down to the floor, but the large V dip neckline exposed most all off her chest flesh. Perhaps it was the question burning in Rey's mind that made her think of her sister as very vixen looking, or perhaps it was just the strikingly feminine assassin vibe her outfit was putting off.  
"What is on your mind, my sun-rey?" Her father put down the silver antique brush he had been using on her hair. "You seem distracted. You are not one to be distracted, my daughter."  
"Just anxious about the ball is all." Rey lied.  
"Not nervous over the young Mr. Solo, I hope?" Her father began to spread a curl serum through his daughter's hair carefully.  
"No, father." Rey lied again.  
"Good. After his little man's temper tantrum at our home the other day I was hoping you would see what little substance was there. A man with no self-control and so much pride it may outweigh his power in the force."  
Rey doubted this. She had felt Bens power, and though his pride was great as well it was nothing in comparison. And her father was wrong about another thing. Ben's outburst in her home had revealed him to her in a not so positive light, but it had had the opposite effect on her. She was more invested and concerned with Ben being in her life than ever. Not only did her have information and knowledge of the force she craved, that she needed, but she was drawn to him now. Perhaps it was just the bond or maybe some twisted sexual fantasy she had been pulled into, but Rey couldn't be yanked to Ben. She had a swirling gut instinct to understand and protect Ben.  
Even now as she hated him, and her beloved father berated him she couldn't help grinding her teeth. A separate piece of her was reacting to the hateful words. A piece that wanted revenge. A piece that wanted to throw her father across the room like she had once before to Ben.  
"Yes, no self-control," Rey said tonelessly.

Ben  
The ball would begin in exactly two hours. White and purple flowers and matching wispy ribbons decorated the garden and the rest of the home. Lights that resembled fireflies floated high over even Ben's head as the only source of light for the evening, so the ambiance was excessively romantically lit. It was enough to make Ben cringe with every step.  
Cassian appeared from the garden entry walking towards Ben as he adjusted the cuffs of his plain white dress shirt. He wore a modest black coat and no tie with black dress pants. Ben thought back to the way his mother and her assistants would ridicule his choice in clothing when attending public functions, but had he shown up dressed like Cassian his mother's P.R. guru would have burned him at the stake.  
"I see you have dressed down for the occasion." Ben sneered.  
"Might want to real in that high and mighty behavior, you never know who could be listening." Cassian and himself turned to the entrance as the last of the food and decorations were being wheeled in by the manors small grey servants.  
"And who might be listening on this disgrace of a planet I may care about?" Ben scoffed folding his hands behind his back.  
"Well, I can think of a few parties who may be concerned, not Rey if that who you're thinking," Ben rolled his eyes at this. Rey had seen him at his worst self. A few overheard classist statements wouldn't be enough to send her away. He could feel it ever since he had confronted her father.  
Even the day he had come across her and her sisters in the sand he could feel her drawn towards him. When he had dismounted his creature, he had to muster all his strength not to smile as she visibly took two steps closer to him. She was already becoming a more active part of their bond. Had he not been rolling in so much guilt over what he would have to do after the ball he may have been able to enjoy her more. But then again, her sister had mistaken her place in their conversation so he had had a hard time enjoying anything at that moment. She had challenged him. He sensed it was protecting her sister that had made Miss Jyn Kenobi act in such a way, but he could sense her hiding something from him as well. Cassian must have told her of his powers, so she could properly prepare herself mentally for his probe.  
"We will see how smug you are tonight Ben. I think true colors will be shown." Cassian walked away from Ben, leaving him alone in the entry now. The sun was disappearing and more floating twinkly lights floated above him. Ben had been worried that tonight would serve as an engagement party for Ani and Padme, but after their argument in the desert, on that Ani had elected not to share with Cassian or Ben, he saw there was no danger there now. Still, though, he hated the romance of the evening already.

Rey  
"I hate that father seems to dismiss Ben's emotions so quickly. He came here looking for fathers guidance no doubt and our father couldn't keep himself calm long enough to help his own godson." Rey played with her now beach wavy hair as she spoke to Padme. They were finally alone after hours of family bonding over the girl's appearances.  
"That was ages ago! Why do you care now? And stop playing with your hair the curls will flatten." Rey's hair did not hold curl or wave or color or anything beautiful. It always returned to its straight plain hazel appearance. She stopped playing with it at her sister's warning, not because she cared but because she did not want another gallon of curl serum dumped on her head.  
"I know, it's just been bugging me I guess." Rey slouched in her chair, but Padme was instantly behind her.  
"Either sit up straight or stand. You'll wrinkle your dress." She had her mom voice on. It wasn't a voice like their mothers, shrill and ditzy, but like a classic mother. Strong but kind. Warning but soft. Wise but not prideful. A female leader. What Padme was born to be.  
Rey stood. She hated to admit it, but she loved Padme's alterations to her dress. It was all silver material. It was long like Jyn's, hanging loosely on her body, but had no back. The dress was secured loosely to her chest by a high collar. The dress did not have sleeves, but Rey's sunburned arms were carefully wrapped in matching silver silky material. With her hair down and textured Rey felt more feminine than was comfortable for her. The armbands were her security blanket now, the only part of the dress up that felt like her. Padme knew her too well sometimes.  
"Okay, well I'm going downstairs. Mother will want holo pictures before we leave." Rey groaned and Padme laughed at her as she applied her makeup.  
After pictures, the family piled into the floating carriage.  
"Where's Poe?" Rey asked. She regretted it instantly for her mother gave her a hopeful and slightly delusional look.  
"He said he would be late to the ball, he had some things to attend to." Rey sighed at her father's answer. She wasn't exactly on speaking terms with Jyn still and Padme would no doubt be with Ani all night. She would eventually find her best friend Finn, she knew he would be there at least. She worried about being around Ben tonight. Even though every bit of her wanted to run to him and beat the answers she needed out of him with her staff then patch him up afterward, she felt she needed to be cautious around him tonight. Something felt like it was shifting. Not in the bond, but something else. A power. A force. Something was different.  
The family was unloaded from their carriage and they made their way into the manor along with several other families Rey recognized and even more she didn't. Once through the doors, she was taken aback by the crowd. She felt herself become anxious and get slowly more wound up. Her mind refused to allow her to breath when she was in crowds. She felt the walls closing in. The chatter of pleasantries seemed to be all directed at her. It created a noisy vacuum of pressure on her. She felt sweaty and faint.  
"Rey." She knew that voice. She whirled around.  
"Finn!" She hugged him. His embraced melted away her anxiety attack in an instant. "Want to get out of here? It's too crowded in here for me!"  
Finn looked beyond conflicted and saddened.  
"Rey, you know I would." Finn grabbed her hand, she hated it when he did that. It always meant danger or bad news. "But my date is actually grabbing us a few drinks then we are going to dance. Come with us though!"  
He smiled hopefully at her. Rey pulled her hand away sadly.  
"Stop taking my hand! And seriously it's okay. You have a date! Who?" She was eager to change the subject before making a run for it to the garden. She needed to see the sky. She hated large parties for this exact reason. She felt her breathing become more difficult to control, or rather force as she stood there longer.  
"You actually know him," Finn was blushing as he pointed in the direction of one of the many open bars. There standing at the bar smiling at them while he waited for drinks was Poe.  
"No!" Rey squeaked.  
"You don't approve?" Finn's face contorted with worry.  
"No, of course, I do! But honestly Finn! My cousin. I knew you always said I was like family, but this is new creepy." She grinned at him.  
"Don't flatter yourself, Kenobi. Your cousin is hot and so am I. We were bound to find each other on this planet full of sandy dry excuses for men."  
"True." Rey laughed. She wasn't breathing so it came out as more of a wheeze.  
"You okay, Rey?" Finn put his hand on her shoulder. The room felt ten times as crowded as it had felt a moment ago.  
"Yeah I'm fine I just need some fresh air."  
Rey hugged Finn before charging in the direction of the garden. It was mostly abandoned so she decided to take a walk. The garden was much more beautiful at night in Rey's opinion. She could see the stars. She could feel the cool night air, it made her skin tingle and her nipples hard. But she couldn't enjoy it for long, for she felt soon enough that someone was following her along the rows of trees.  
"Show yourself, I know you're there."

Ben  
He had seen her walk in. He had seen her face go from wonder to pain and anxiety in a matter of seconds. His first instinct was to go to her. He wanted to soothe her if she would just let him. But no, as a master he would have to make tough calls for her. And at this moment, she needed to learn to self-soothe. He had left her there in the middle of the crowded tea room. That is until a strangely familiar looking man walked up to her from behind. He thought he may be some stranger looking to take what was rightfully Ben's, but then she had hugged him.  
Ben could not help himself. As the two spoke he began circling the two like a lion would its prey. He walked the outskirts of the crowd. This was where he normally was during these organizations of people, but usually much less mobile. The man kept touching Rey. He felt across the bond she was still panicking, but she felt safe around the man so Ben did not kill him. He circled and circled until she took off. She ran to the garden. He wanted to resist following her, but he thought of all the men who had eyed her as she walked in. Ben decided it was much better if he followed her out there than some low born drunken pig.  
Watching Rey look up at the stars was much more beautiful and interesting than looking to the skies after her. She had such wonder and life in her beautiful eyes. Then she felt him. He had followed her stealthily for a time, but sooner than he expected she sensed him.  
"Show yourself, I know you're there."  
"Took you long enough, you need to work on your awareness my padawan." Ben stepped out of the trees. She shone in the moons' light with that breathtaking dress on. Her nipples were pushing through the material. If that didn't make him hard, which it most definitely did, he would have been worried.  
"I am not your student," Rey said simply.  
"And yet you seek my knowledge. You want me to give you the tools you are so desperately lacking." Ben pulled his lips into his mouth to wet them. He moved closer to her, but not too close. His self-control was questionable at best, then she had to wear that god damned dress and look so fucking sexy.  
"Let's call it an exchange. You want something from me, I want something from you. Let's figure it out together." He liked the idea of together. He liked it too much.  
"What I want is your submission and your admission." He grinned at her the way his father grinned at his mother when he wanted something.  
"Not going to happen." Ben thought of what would transpire tomorrow. She would join him no matter what he said tonight, so why make her angry with him.  
"Very well." He sighed. He wanted to enjoy this night with Rey before she became his student.  
"What?" Rey's eyes were wide and wild.  
"You heard me, I am at a break in time. For now. I would like to enjoy the evening and if that means not fighting with you then that's what I must do." He winked. "Though I do enjoy our fights. You let your barriers down when you get angry."  
"Shut up." Rey snapped.  
"Careful Rey, let's try something new hmm?" He moved closer to her, she was so god damned tempting. Her skin looked so warm he wanted to rip that dress from her tanned skin and kiss and lick every inch of her blushed flesh. "Tonight, I am not Mr. Solo, I am Ben. You are Rey. Not Rey Kenobi, but Rey. Just Rey from nowhere."  
"Ben?" She tried it out looking scared of his close proximity.  
"Yes?" He smiled down at her.  
The last thing Ben expected to happen happened then. Ben had only wished to tease her. Tease himself even, just to have something to think about that night while he stroked himself. He had wanted to crack the dam, not blow it to smithereens. But god how he loved the way her dam broke.  
She had grabbed his neck in her wrapped arms. Her lips were small and eager on his. He tasted her lips. They were sweet like sugar and coconut. He pulled her up to him, he toes barely on the ground. His hands were snaked around her waist. He couldn't help it, he backed them into a tree off the path. He didn't want anyone to see Rey in this heated desperate state but himself. She gasped for breath when he parted from the kiss to move down her throat. He sucked her skin and nuzzled at her hair with his nose. God how he loved that smell.  
"Rey." He ground as she pulled his hair slightly. He went back to her mouth. She pushed him back.  
"Gloves." She need only say the one word and he removed them promptly allowing his battle-worn hands to rake greedily over the silky silver material of her dress. He felt her hip bones and her muscular perky ass. He wished her dress was not so long. He wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and hardened cock. He wanted to feel her strong toned thighs tighten around him as he ground against her.  
His newly bare hands went to her hair next. In one hand he grabbed a fistful of it roughly making her moan as she kissed him. He thought he heard his name escape her lips. He loved it. He wanted his name to be the only thing she could mutter. He wanted to be the only thing she could focus on. His other hand stroked her neck kindly and affectionately. His tongue massaged hers. She was inexperienced, but he would teach her. He would teach her so many things. Show her so many planets. He would expand Rey's world tenfold after just one more day.  
One day. He realized she would most likely hate him if he took advantage of her ignorance again like he had before with the force bond. So, Ben did the last thing he would ever want to do.  
"Rey." He whispered as he let her hair go and stopped kissing her. She whined and began to kiss his throat. She had to balance herself on his broad shoulders and stand on her tip toes.  
"Don't stop." She breathed heavily. It was all he could do not to rip her dress down the middle and fuck her against that tree as she said this. He didn't want to stop. She was all he thought about, all he cared about.  
"Rey, someone will see."  
"I don't care." She kissed him on lips again. He returned it briefly before catching himself.  
"I can't be responsible for ruining your reputation." He looked at her seriously. At least that was partly true. He didn't care about deflowering her and ruining her currency as a bride. In fact, he would love it because then she would be his forever. But, he needed a valid excuse not to go down on her against the cherry tree he had her pinned against.  
"You mean you can't have me ruin yours." She muttered and released him.  
"What?" Ben panicked. What had he said? How could he fix it? He couldn't have her hate him, not now with everything on the line.  
"I'm just Rey from nowhere right?" She pushed past him and began walking back to the party.  
"That's not what I meant!" Ben gripped her arm pulling her back to him. She tried to push him away with the force, but her emotions were everywhere. She couldn't focus her strength.  
"Sure." Her voice cracked, but she looked down. Was she crying? He couldn't see.  
"Rey please!" He tried to pull her chin to look at him, but she shook off his grip.  
"You're an ass!" She yanked on her arm, but he wouldn't release.  
"Rey, it's not what you think."  
"Then what is it? There are too many damn secrets in my life right now, what is it!" She wasn't asking. She was yelling.  
"I can't tell you. Not yet at least." Ben was suddenly the desperate one. He couldn't tell her tonight. It would ruin everything, she was too emotional. She might decide to disown him rather than her father if he told her now.  
"Screw you, Ben Solo." She finally ripped out of his grasp and took off into the ball.  
"Force!" Ben began to pull his own hair. "Fuck!" He screeched and ripped out his lightsaber. He thrashed it around nonsensically and cut down every cherry tree he saw in the lane. He was so blinded by his rage he almost didn't feel Rey through the bond when she instinctively reached to him. She was scared. She needed comfort. Needed him.  
Ben clipped his lightsaber back to his belt and took off in the direction the bond pulled him in.

Rey  
All Rey could feel was anger and embarrassment. She didn't know what had come over her, it was like the bond had unlocked something in her she didn't even know about. She had suddenly this need, this desperation, not just for the physical touch of Ben Solo, but to be his and for him to be hers. She had pulled his hair animalistically. She had begged him not to stop like some pathetic sex hypnotized woman. All she wanted was to feel him, taste him, listen to his heavy rushed breath.  
But when he had said he didn't want people to see them it was like a vacuum was turned on within her sucking every positive and bond driven feeling from her soul. She felt cold and empty. He still only thought of her as some low born woman he could use for her power. She had run from him, Rey admitted to herself. But it wasn't because she was hurt, it was because she knew if she stayed near him she may have ripped his lightsaber from his belt and scarred that beautiful face of hers. And the bond just wouldn't allow her to do so.  
The music was loud and the people were drunk when she re-entered the ball. How long had she been outside? It was as if Ben and she had been in a time warp. The evening was flowing along smoothly. Across the room, she saw her father with an older couple and a man who wore a long brown cloak over white dress robes. Something shifted in the air and the man turned to look at her. His bright blue eyes seemed to see right into her. Rey couldn't help herself. She moved to them robotically.  
"Rey." Her father's voice was frightened. He looked shocked to see her.  
"Father," Rey said not taking her eyes away from the strange man standing with his father.  
"Hello Rey," Said the short older woman. Her grey hair was pulled up in two braided buns. "I'm Leia Organa, this is my husband Han and my brother Luke."  
She gestured to Luke who had still not removed his icy glare. It unsettled Rey greatly. She felt him looking into her mind. How could he do that? Only Ben had that ability… didn't he?  
"You're father was just telling us about your childhood, how he raised you in the desert practically." Luke finally spoke. His tone was objective and somewhat condescending.  
"Yes, we have many projects going right now with scraps we gather. Eventually, I'd like to work on something bigger, maybe my own ship." Rey tried to join the conversation with ease, but she couldn't help feeling that she was missing the deeper meaning of these new people's conversation.  
"Your own ship, huh?" Han piped up looking interested. "Well if you have a minute before the end of the night I'd love to show you the Faulcon."  
Han smiled crookedly at her, his energy was warm and inviting. He reminded her of someone she had read about, a war hero. A smuggler? Rey blinked when she realized who stood before her.  
"Wait a minute! You're Han Solo, the smuggler." Rey smiled widely at the man who made the Kessel run in 14 parsecs.  
"Ex-smuggler." Leia chimed in. Why did her eyes look so familiar?  
"Yes well, Rey and I must be on our way through. It's getting late." Rey stared at her father as he said this. He didn't like balls much but they couldn't have been here more than a few hours, mother and Padme would never leave this early.  
"Not so fast, Kenobi. We aren't done talking." Luke snapped.  
"Luke," Leia warned.  
"No Leia, I know you chose not to train as a Jedi, but this girl was robbed of that choice. Now her father must pay for that."  
Rey stared. Her father knew? Luke must be mistaken, who did he think he was.  
"Master Skywalker, might I remind you who you are seeking to." Her father pulled Rey by her elbow father from Luke. She moved away willingly, Luke was scaring her. Something prickled in the back of her mind, it was Ben. He was angry, full of rage, but she was too preoccupied with what was unfolding to be concerned.  
"I might have to remind you that you left the council and are no longer of Master status Obi-won, so you have no standing here." Luke moved closer to Rey.  
"Dad," Rey whimpered, and her father looked down at her with wide eyes. "You were a Jedi?"  
Her whole world was shaking.  
"One of the best," Luke explained. "And he hid you and your power from us, we only knew because of a message sent to us from Mr. Andor."  
"Cassian?" Rey realized what her sister had been speaking of the other day in the desert. She had spoken of the company that would be there. Mr. Solo must have told Cassian who told Jyn she was a force sensitive.  
"Master Skywalker." Rey heard the first and last voice she wanted to hear at that moment. Mr. Solo was calm as he approached Luke and her, but something in his eyes resembled violence.  
"Ben, I see you have been up to the usual." Luke saw the same violence in Ben's eyes she did no doubt.  
"I see you are in the process of abducting a young woman?" Ben sneered. Wasn't he supposed to respect his master?  
"Son," Han didn't exactly speak the word, he more breathed it out heavily like he was in shock.  
"Han Solo, mother." Ben didn't even look at them. Rey couldn't breathe there were too many developments in the last few moments. Her body was overflowing quickly with all this new information. Her father a Jedi. A Jedi who had kept her in secret from the Jedi council. Ben's mother was General Organa, her cousins mentor and practically his adoptive mother. Han Solo, her childhood hero, was his father. Luke Skywalker, Ben's scary Jedi master uncle was trying to… what had been said? Abduct?  
"What do you mean abduction?" Rey yanked her arm from her father. His hand on her no longer felt safe and loving. It felt heavy and restrictive.  
"You are to come with me Rey and study as my padawan. You have grown too powerful, thanks to your father's attempts to dowse your force burning flame, to be left alone any longer. You must be taught balance and control." Luke took a step towards her, but both Ben and her father blocked his path.  
"You are not taking my daughter anywhere." Her father growled.  
Luke looked unthreatened but then turned his head to Ben.  
"And what is your excuse? You clearly have known about her, as has young Mr. Ani and yet you said nothing? Explain yourself, Ben." Luke glared at his nephew.  
"She and I have a connection, the force has linked us. It has grown too strong to separate us now, it would be a grave mistake to do so." Luke rolled his eyes.  
"And I suppose that was what you were waiting for? The connection to become strong enough to feed off her power?"  
"No!"  
Rey's voice surprised everyone, including herself. Han and Leia looked at her as though she were some kind of mutant. Her father had more than just terror in his eyes, but also pride. Ben looked at her as though she had just leaped in front of a laser beam for him, a mixture of thankfulness and heartbrokenness.  
"He want's to be my teacher. He's not using me for my power, I wouldn't let him." Rey moved beside Ben as an equal. She did not need him to shield her from danger, even if it was in the form of his creepy Jedi uncle.  
"Of course he does. Rey, you don't know ow a force bond works, his power is yours now and vice versa. You do not understand-" Rey cut off Luke.  
"He's shown me the sacred texts, I know more than you think." Rey stood tall and she felt the bond pride radiating from Ben's heart. He had never had anyone stand up for him before she could feel it. No one had ever seen his side and trusted it completely. It did, of course, ease Rey's trust issues being as she could see into his head and heart.  
"Young Ben you have crossed so many lines. She will be my student, you will study beside her because of the bond, but you will never be a master." Rey grabbed Ben's ungloved hand instinctually. It wasn't so much for her as it was her small way of protecting him. She still hated him for the events in the garden, but she would still die for him. It was a strange feeling.  
Leia was studying them closely. Han too. They seemed to have a mental conversation by looking briefly into one another's eyes. They must be soul mates, was all Rey could think off and she didn't believe in such things.  
"Luke, I'm afraid I will have to intervene on this one." Leia moved in front of her son and Rey challenging her brother. "As the highest-ranking figure in this ballroom and perhaps on this planet," Rey could see where Ben got his people skills from. "I am making the executive decision to place Rey in the protective custody of Ben Chewbacca Solo."  
"You don't have the authority, Leia." Luke sounded shocked and vaguely fearful.  
"I am the authority, you may take Rey into the Jedi Orders custody on account of her unbalanced power, but Ben will be in charge of her overall safety, I have chosen him due to his credit as a Jedi Knight. He will control where she is placed. Who she trains under. Who see's her. And when she will be released by the council."  
Rey choked back her tears. Everything was being decided for her. She was a prisoner. She could feel the walls caving in on her chest. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see. Her vision was blurry with panic. She released Ben's hand and began to back away from the group deciding her future. But before she could turn and run she was frozen by Ben's deep dark eyes pleading for her not to run.  
CLICK.  
Rey looked down at a pair of large metal cuffs around her wrists. Luke fastened them tightly.  
"Sorry, kid. Just a formality with untrained force users." Luke muttered frustrated with his sister's decision still.  
"You don't need to cuff her," Ben argued as Luke led her out. People were staring. Her father was following on her coattails and her sister and Cassian were waiting at the door to the large ship that would be taking her away from her home.  
"Please don't do this!" Her father cried out behind her, but he was stopped by two resistance pilots.  
"Dad! Dad!" Rey tried to shake off Lukes grasp. Han walked aboard the ship with Leia.  
"Rey! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't want them to find you! Don't let them ruin you! Don't let them take you away!" Her father was choking back sobs as he pushed against the pilots. Rey swiveled out of Luke's grasp and kicked him in the stomach. He keeled over and then she kicked him in the head. Rey took off running towards her father.  
Suddenly, her path was blocked by none other than her force bond mate, Ben Solo. She looked up at him begging him across the bond to let her by, let her run.  
'Please, I'm so afraid.' She thought.  
'It's okay, I feel it too.' And with Ben's thought echoing in her mind he raised a now gloved hand and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The garden scene was inspired by the movie "Becoming Jane" about Jane Austen's process of writing Pride and Prejudice. I know a lot happened in this chapter and was pretty hectic but I hope it was enough for you guys! I love the Ben didn't get what he wanted in being her master because as much as he may hate it (because he thinks of himself as a prince) they are equals. They have a lot to learn from one another.


	9. Mantras, Meditation, and Medication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey awakes on her way to a foreign planet with only Luke and Ben for a company. But not for long. Soon Luke returns to the council leaving Ben as the trusted babysitter of the young inexperienced force user. Ben knows he isn't supposed to interfere in her tutelage under Luke, but he can feel the bond begin to go numb on Rey's end. It's time for him to step in and tell her about what their bond really means.

PPIS Chapter 9

Rey  
Sitting in a cell would have been bad. Waking up to chains and handcuffs would have been frightening. But what Rey saw when she came to was perhaps the most shocking and revolting thing she could have dreamt up. Ben sitting beside her on a long metal bench her head in his lap while she slept. She tried to stand up, but she felt light-headed. As she struggled to pick herself up off of him something heavy slid off her body, it was Ben's dress cloak from the ball. She was still in her dress and the frigid space atmosphere made her skin prickle.  
Ben stood helping her sit up and picked up his cloak. He wrapped it around her wordlessly. They simply stared at each other. Rey wasn't sure who had more fear in their eyes, her or Ben. One thing was clear though, Rey couldn't trust Ben. He had stopped her from getting away, from getting to her father and for this he would suffer. Rey wasn't sure when, but she would make it happen. Even if the bond implored her natural instincts to protect him she would push past it and hurt him, hurt him like he had never been hurt before.  
"Welcome back Rey," Luke walked to her. Rey wrapped Bens cloak around her tighter, she realized her cuffs were gone most likely per Ben's request. That was his mistake. Ben went flying across the shuttle with Rey's push of the force. Luke seemed unfazed. That is until Rey stood and pulled Ben's lightsaber from his belt and ignited it in her hands. Luke's face went from serious and punishing to disapproving and nostalgic.  
"She's just like you, Ben," Luke shook his head and raised his hand pulling the lightsaber from her with the force into his hand. He switched it off and through it to Ben who was pulling himself up from the floor now. "If you are to be in charge of her safety you are going to have to better guard your own, young Ben."  
Rey cringed. Her father's namesake had betrayed her and her father had. How could he have done that to her? Hidden her away. Why couldn't he have just asked her if she wanted to be a Jedi? She could have said no. Now she had no choice but to train under Master Luke.  
"Where are we going?" Rey asked defensively. She missed Ben's cloak already. It lay in a pile at her feet, but she had too much pride to dip down and wrap herself in its warmth. It had smelled like him too, and she hated how much she loved that smell.  
"Ben chose a planet with a Jedi temple you can study at. I will visit every moon and teach you lessons on the force, Ben will oversee you while I am not there. He is there to offer guidance," Luke looked at his nephew pointedly. "Not to teach you."  
"And when can I leave?" Rey wrapped her freezing arms around her shivering body.  
"When we deem your control over the force strong enough, we cannot have someone as powerful as you and Ben wandering the galaxies with no control over their own power."  
"And what does Ben have to do with this?" Rey looked at Mr. Solo as he looked down at his feet ashamed, as he should be. God how she would make him suffer.  
"Powerful light, powerful darkness," Luke moved over to his nephew. "I knew as Ben's understanding of the dark side grew someone in the light would rise to meet him, never had I imagined a force bond as a result. The force has no consciousness, but one has to wonder in instances like this if there is some greater plan in the works."  
A voice over the speaker announced the shuttle would be landing.  
"You may want to take a seat, Rey. Don't want you getting knocked unconscious again do we?" Luke hummed as she sat on a bench across from hers.  
"I wasn't knocked unconscious, your nephew used the force."  
"Yes, well Ben may be gentle with you, but I assure you he is very powerful. I wouldn't recommend trying to run again." Ben sat beside Rey and fastened a safety belt around her. She hated that she was soothed by his closeness. Just hours ago she had been ready to die for him and now she was working out the best way to kill him.  
‘I know you're mad.' Ben's voice was in her head.  
‘Mad doesn't cover it.' Rey thought back.  
‘I had to do it, Luke wouldn't have stopped searching for you. You're safer with me than anywhere else. Luke would have separated us first chance he got.' Ben fastened his own safety belt now as the descent began.  
‘Like that would have been the worst thing in the world.' Rey retorted shakily.  
‘Rey, the bond is too strong. To separate now would be suicide. Eventually, our minds would be working so hard to connect us, giving us visions into each other's minds and realities, we wouldn't know what was real and what wasn't.' Rey wished he was making this up, but what he said was aligning exactly with the warnings in the Jedi texts. A force bond was imminent, there was no stopping the meeting of the two members. But if after the meeting, they tried to separate or were parted against their will, they would surely perish without the other half of themselves.  
‘You just better keep your hands to yourself.' Rey thought at Ben. If he thought their kiss, the things she had said to him in the garden, were still meaningful he was insane. Rey felt him grow uneasy beside her as she said this. Or had that been her? The idea of his hands never being on her again made her panic, but her anger outweighed her fear so the two sat in silence for the remainder of the descent.

Ben  
*Four weeks later*  
Ben awoke early in his small stone hut. He did most mornings. Luke had stayed with Rey and him on the planet of Takodana for the first three weeks getting Rey up to speed on her new routine. He trained her in basic battle strategy, meditation, force control, and mind control. What Luke had not touched on in those three weeks was the force bond. He had abandoned it. Ben was forced to look on at Luke's half-witted outdated training and mantras, and Rey was being forced once again to sacrifice part of who she was. Already Luke was encouraging Rey to "unburden herself" of everything that made her special.  
The bond, despite its abandonment by Luke, was strong and active as ever. Rey still called to him overnight, like a sirens song. It took all of his control not to rush into her small hut that was only paces from his and take her on the squeaky wooden bed she dreamt of him nightly in. When she meditated he could feel her become distracted by the smallest things, his scent, the sound of his footsteps as he paced around her, even sometimes the feeling of his eyes on her was enough to send her mind off track. Ben knew if he could just have her once again like he had in the garden it would solve so many of their problems.  
The morning air was quiet as Ben walked to Rey's hut and knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer. If she were still sleeping like she had been when Luke first left the island on Takodana, he would be forced to throw her over his shoulder and carry her to the temple. The idea sounded thrilling.  
"Rey!" Ben called loudly. No answer. He opened the metal door and it squeaked revealing an empty bed that was unmade. She must have run off. Impossible, Ben would have felt the conflict in her. He knew no matter how much she still hated him she didn't want to leave his side. But then where could she be? Fear of abandonment and loneliness swarmed inside of Ben when the sound of a rock falling and smashing into bits made him turn around.  
"Force!" He heard Rey curse out somewhere beyond the huts. Ben moved in the direction of her voice. "Sorry! It- it slipped."  
Ben came upon a guilty looking Rey holding a lightsaber. She had severed a large boulder in half sending it crashing down on a project of the native islanders (the small alien women who took care of the Jedi temple). The small women yelled up at Rey in a foreign dialect to Ben, but he could tell from Rey's expression she understood the language.  
"It appears we will need to focus more on your coordination before Luke returns." Ben chuckled. Rey glared at him.  
"Master Luke will focus my training where he believes it should be focused when he returns, until then-"  
"Until then you will continue to piss-off the caretakers to the brink of war," Ben quipped walking to her pulling the lightsaber from her hand using the force. "That's enough combat training for one day."  
"You're not my teacher," Rey argued refusing to follow him in the direction of the small temple atop a cliff on the outskirts of the island. Ben continued to walk in the direction of the sacred place though.  
"No, but I am here to protect you from others and yourself. You're lucky you didn't lose a hand practicing like that, it's a common injury for Jedi." He mentioned nonchalantly.  
"Give me back my weapon and we'll see who loses a hand," Rey threatened, standing her ground.  
"Come, Rey. We have work to do," Mr. Solo ignored her and continued on the crumbling path.  
Rey knew she had the choice not to follow him. He was not her Master. Not her teacher. But something in the bond pushed her in his direction, and part of her was happy to oblige the natural curiosity she had for Ben.  
After arriving at the top of the mountain Rey noticed Ben had broken a sweat on the hike up, his brow was wet, and his normally pale cheeks were slightly reddened. Rey, however, was used to hiking in much more intense environments than this, so the easy atmosphere made the hike a simple walk for her toned legs and healthy lungs.  
She finally passed him at the top, he wasn't broken by the walk, but his long-legged strides had slowed down somewhat.  
"Too much for you, Mr. Solo?" Rey teased.  
"Rey, you will soon find that my body is much more capable than the average man's," Rey felt her cheeks redden at this. She didn't like to dwell on the kiss they had shared. In fact, she hated herself for even going through with it. She hated the bond for pushing them together with the way it had.  
"It's not only the bond, Rey," Rey furrowed her brow. She hated it when her thoughts slipped out from her mental shields. Ben passed Rey and walked into the cave at the top of the mountain. Luke had only taken her here once to meditate, but after she had cracked the ground during a moment of exploring the force he had banned her from entering again. He had said her raw undisciplined strength had no place in a temple.  
"I'm not supposed to be here, Master Luke said he hadn't seen such raw strength since-"  
"Since me?" Ben interjected eyeing her from inside the cave. "Master Luke wants you to meditate, how can he expect you to understand the force without being open to a strong connection to it. Come in, Rey, I promise you won't bring down the cave."  
Rey hesitated then walked in slowly. It was cool inside the temple. Not cold, just still with coolness and serenity. The only sound came from water slowly dripping into the shallow pool in the center of the temple.  
Ease washed over Rey in the serene environment.  
"Have a seat, wherever feels right," Ben hummed as he walked to the far side of the temple lighting a stem of incense that stung Rey's nose.  
Rey sat on the cool ground and crossed her legs in lotus position, just as Master Luke had taught her. She pressed her palms to the ground and closed her eyes.  
"No, Rey. Open your eyes," She did, Ben was sitting in lotus facing her.  
"Ben, what are you doing?" Rey snapped.  
"Give me your hands."  
"I'm not giving you anything," Rey glared passionately at Ben.  
"That's it, look into my eyes Rey," Ben hummed kindly.  
"What are you playing at, Ben Solo?"  
"Just listen to me Rey, you want to learn, don't you? You want to understand?"  
‘Not like this.' Rey thought at her bond mate.  
‘Just give me your hands, Rey, this only works if you allow it to.' Ben's voice was slow and wonderful like honey in her mind. She hated it.  
Still, though, she slipped her hands into his. They were coarse and rough from his experience in battle. Hers were worn and calloused from countless sunburns and injuries sustained while tinkering and rummaging through scrap metal. Her hands, though beaten just as much as his, suddenly felt small and feminine when enclosed by his large ones.  
"Breathe," Ben hummed at her.  
Rey pulled in a large shaking huff of the cool air and released it slowly.  
"Let yourself feel the force, all around us. Moving within us. Connecting us…" Ben too let out a steady breath of air. "Find where it connects us. Don't be afraid, I feel it too. Find it, the force within us, its strength, its liveliness."  
Rey breathed and listened to his words, she reached out with her mind to feel what Ben was talking about. At first, she felt nothing, but then she realized the nothing she felt, was everything. She had grown numb to the feeling of their force connection, getting used to it being there like white noise. It was overwhelming. An energy ebbing and flowing between them, around them, within them. It both passed through him into her and existed within all of them at the same time somehow. They were all force. They were one.  
"I feel it," Rey whispered in a trance.  
‘What do you feel, Rey?' Ben echoed in her mind.  
"We're the same, I- I don't understand, we, us," Rey stammered unable to articulate the intoxicating synergy of their selves.  
‘We are balance, Rey.' Bens thought broke her concentration. She snapped her hands away from his and stood.  
"What is this? Some kind of trick? Brainwashing? I will not be your student Ben, not now not ever!" Rey turned to run out of the temple before she broke something. Ben chased after her.  
"Don't you see Rey! We are the balance, the grey Jedi believe in that above all else, but how can you and I be the balance if Luke does not teach you to be balanced on your own!" He grabbed her elbow spinning her around  
"Master uke is teaching me-"  
"Teaching you to be one-sided, on the light side. The more light grows within you the more dark grows within me, that's how it works. Luke doesn't believe our bond is the balance, he's trying to destroy it, you had nearly forgotten its existence before today." Ben laughed painfully.  
"Luke would never do that," Rey tightened her arms at her sides getting in Ben's face, even if it was towering above her own.  
"Your Master Luke fears what we are. He has never supported the Grey Jedi, he will always be biased to the light. He fears what it did to his father, my grandfather-"  
"The murder you pray to at night, you mean!" Rey sneered. "Do you think I don't hear you, do you think I didn't know from the moment I met you that you feared you would never be as strong as Darth Vader."  
Rey shoved Ben's large frame. His large size caused them both to stagger back.  
"Anakin Skywalker was the first of great Jedi to suffer under the confusion of balancing the light and dark, He was taught he must choose and look was that did to him," Ben's voice softened now. "I won't let the same thing happen to us, Rey. We must balance the force, not just for ourselves, but for all Jedi."  
He put his hands on Rey's shoulders.  
"I won't let the conflict tear you apart Rey, and Force knows I'm done being torn apart myself."  
He pulled her in slowly, wrapping his large arms around her. Rey didn't know why or how, but she knew he was telling the truth. He was doing this for them. All the pain and torture, ripping her away from her family, training her and himself to be Grey Jedi, was all for the balance. She didn't know how long he had known about it, but she knew her training would not be the same from then on.


	10. Kiss me goodnight, Rey. Kiss me goodbye, Ben.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke Skywalker creating more problems than anyone needs. Ben finally goes after what he wants from Rey and explains to her why their bond is so important. Suprise, surprise! People still trying to control everything Rey does. Sexy sad times ahead!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you familiar with the P & P plotline I know I am a bit off topic now, but I can promise you will be seeing more fun parallels in the next few chapters with plot and characters. We are picking up speed though, soon Rey (our space Elizabeth) will be visiting with her best friend Finn and his partner (aka Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins).

Chapter 10

Rey  
Months of training later:

Muscles heavy and tired. Skin shining and sticky with sweat. Adrenalin pumping through her inexperienced veins. His pupils were dilated with intensity and instinct. Fear and excitement rolled around within Rey's chest as she once again raised her borrowed lightsaber, green and old used to train children. That was what Ben had told her at least when he had finally convinced Luke to allow her to train with something that wasn't a staff of a stick from the island's trees.

Luke was gone again. It seemed like he never left though. Rey hated to admit it but she craved her secret training with Ben. He understood her and how her mind worked making training not necessarily easy, but much more enjoyable. With Luke, all Rey was allowed to do was meditate, go on long silent walks with the Jedi master, Ben trailing behind at a distance for "safety purposes," and use her borrowed lightsaber to block electric shots fired at her from a droid. She was getting quite good at the last one though. Even blindfolded she was hardly ever hit so long as she stayed focused. But Luke often lectured Rey on her inability to stay at attention and for her constant lack of control over her emotions. He and Ben were a broken record player about that. But Rey had never been one to be accused of having no patience or attention. And Luke seemed to only have a problem with her emotions not being in check when her mind wandered to Ben.

It wasn't all her fault though, sometimes she felt Ben prod at the bond, intentionally trying to distract her. It wasn't so much to get her into trouble as it was to make Luke angry at the whole "force bond" issue. And jealousy of course. Rey looked up to Luke, as stiff and closed off as he could be. He reminded her of her father. It was his inner strength and clear connection to goodness she had always loved about her father. And now she felt the same forces in Luke. But also something else. A fear. Not of Ben or of the bond, something he claimed was speculation on Ben's part, but of the power of the dark side. She sensed this fear had not always been there it was new.

But right now, with Luke away from the island, all Rey could feel was Ben. Ben was everything, surrounding her and the entire planet. He had become more and more frustrated with her as they trained when she refused to let him touch her, aside from the sparing they were not supposed to be doing. They had meditated while holding hands, but on the few occasions Ben had reached for her face tenderly or pushed his want and longing across the bond Rey had snapped away and closed the doors to her mind. She could feel his frustration bubbling up now especially.

"You're still holding on," Ben snapped. "Let go!"

Rey closed her eyes and tried to release her longing for home, her sisters, father, even her overbearing mother. She missed Finn. She missed their long late night talks over hologram and their constant banter and teasing.

"It's time to let the past die, Rey, you have no place there anymore. If you don't let it die, you're the one who's going to get killed."  
Ben lunged at her proving his point by singing her sleeve with his red laser sword. Rey growled, she wasn't hurt. He had intentionally missed her skin, but she was still angry with him. She needed time to say goodbye, time to let go. But day by day he grew more impatient.

Rey locked weapons with him kicking him square in the chest. Ben stumbled gracelessly nearly dropping his lightsaber. Green and red light splashed their faces in the dimmed morning light. Everything seemed grey except their swords lights and Ben's dark eyes.

They carried on violently, between blows Ben would plead with Rey to focus. He was tireless. Relentless. Putting her on the edge of sanity. She felt her teeth grind on cue and anger and rage fill her throat. Her brain buzzed with something more animal than annoyance. Ben tossed his weapon fancily and easily before approaching her yet again, this time moving in such an experienced way as to launch her sword from her hands. It went flying out of reach and Ben grinned knowing he had taught her a humiliating lesson. Rey, not knowing what came over her, let out a cry and charged her force bond mate tackling him to the ground sending Ben's lightsaber flying away as well. Now having his large frame pinned to the ground Rey began to pound as hard as she could into his chest.

The anger faded into sadness, sadness into emptiness, and emptiness eventually to exhausted confusion. Ben sat up holding her wrists now to block the few blows she still half-heartedly delivered. Tears welled up in her eyes and threatened to fall.

‘Rey' Ben thought softly. ‘Breath, just breath.'

Rey gasped for air trying to do as he asked. She couldn't breathe though, too much panic and pain and nothingness were filling her so quickly. It was like she was drowning in nothing.  
Soft lips were gently on hers all at once. It wasn't so much a kiss as it was an embrace. Bens arms holding her so tightly she felt like nothing else could ever touch her. Like he wouldn't allow any more pain to find her. His lips simply found hers and rested easily, forcing her to hold her breath naturally. When he released her lips, an exasperated gasp escaped her as she gratefully gulped in the air around them.

Ben's gloved hands moved her lessened sweaty hair behind her ears, with all the fighting her buns had become partly undone and mostly tangled dampened with sweat. Rey's swollen red eyes found his which were pleading for something.

"I'm gone not even a week, and this is your idea of safekeeping?" Rey rolled off Kylo onto the cold damp grass they had been sparing on. Luke stood a few yards from them crossing his arms. "How am I supposed to be training her if you continue to act as though I am not here."

Rey hated it when Luke talked like she wasn't there, but at the moment she was so embarrassed by him seeing her on top of his nephew and padawan she was grateful for the invisibility treatment.

"Perhaps if you trained her as intensely as she needs to be Rey wouldn't be begging for my insight," Ben pushed himself off the ground and raised his hand summoning his lightsaber from across the field.

"Is that what you think?" Luke scoffed approaching his nephew, not even bothering to look at Rey. "Insight…"

Luke shook his head.

‘It will be okay Rey, just stay quiet where you are.' Ben thought at Rey. He could sense her discomfort.

"Fine then, let's talk about the bond. About how you Ben, perhaps the darkest of this generations Knights, is a part of the balance."

"You're understanding of balance is detached at best, Luke."

"And your light is flickering at the most, Ben." Rey felt something stir in her. The familiar need to protect. Ben was vulnerable here. What if Luke sent him away? What if he stopped training Rey? What if she never saw him again and they were both driven mad from the distance.

"It's not Ben's fault," Rey blurted out.

Luke didn't take his eyes off his nephew.

"Rey I know you have some kind of attachment to my nephew, but you are speaking of things you don't understand yet."

‘Rey, be quiet, I can handle Luke terrorizing me, but if he is upset with both of us he might try to hurt you to get to me.'

This was it. She couldn't let Ben suffer at the hands of the man she looked up to so much. Even if she did hate Ben for using the bond to manipulate her, separate her from her family, and so many other things. God! Why did she have to feel this way?

"No one could understand this better than me."

Rey jumped in front of Ben as though Luke were holding a blaster pointed at him. Though her small frame barely shielded her bond mate at all she slipped her hands into his gloved ones as a sign of unity. If Luke refused to acknowledge the bond, she would show him.

"We are connected, Master. I don't know if it's the balance or whatever Ben seems to believe it is, but we are connected. I can see into his mind and him into mine. Every day you lift me higher towards the light, you are pushing Ben down into the dark."

Luke glared in skepticism.

"Ben is just trying to save himself, and me."

"Trust me, Rey, this isn't going to go the way you think," Luke warned.

"I don't even know which way it is supposed to go, I just know if I was being sucked in by dominating darkness, I would want all the help I could get to stay out of it."  
Bens hands tightened around hers. She couldn't see his face, but she could feel the overwhelming joy they radiated from him as she defended him.

"I'll be placing a call to the council tonight. Ben pack your things you are to return with me to visit with the masters. You can tell them what you think is going on between you two. In the meantime, Rey will return home before continuing her training with me."

Rey smiled slightly at her victory, but when she turned around to see Ben's face towering over her it wasn't a smile she saw. It was pain and fear.

That evening Rey began to fold her few clothes she had been given to train in. It wasn't much, but she needed something to take her mind off the quiet dinner she had had with Luke and the longing looks Ben had given her while she assisted Luke with his day to day chores; fishing, gathering food and water and milking the large wildlife on the banks of the island.

She felt Ben's anxiety even now, a feeling she was used to having on her own, but it was foreign and painful knowing it was Ben's feelings leaking into her chest.

A knock on the door to her hut made her break her concentration.

 

Ben

She didn't know. She couldn't see the big picture. All she could focus on was that she got to go home for a short time and that he would be heard out by the council. But Ben knew better. He could see Luke was only trying to separate them. He wanted what he assumed to be nonsense and Ben's needless manipulation of a new powerful padawan to stop. Luke had always assumed Ben would go completely dark one day, so he had tried to train him weakly. But with no family looking over him with love and no reason to care for his own well-being Ben had taken to training himself. He had made himself strong and had used his dark tendencies to ease his pain and loneliness.

And now once again using the darkness to get himself through his fear of losing Rey, his only hope for balance, he found himself at her door.

He knocked nervously. The door opened shortly after.

"Mr. Solo," Rey greeted. She frowned trying to figure what was going through his head. He felt her stirring around in his mind.

"If you want to know something just ask," Ben looked her in the eye taking in her hazel colored curiosity. "May I come in?"

She stepped aside allowing him entrance.

"What are you so afraid of?" She asked.

"You don't see what they are doing to us," Ben breathed unevenly as he spoke.

"Ben, they are going to listen to you. They will see into your mind that what you have to say is true and then…"

"Then we will fly off into the sunset together?" Ben scoffed.

"I was going to say that things can go back to normal," Rey moved to her small bed to place three neatly folded shirts into a small bag.

"Rey, let me explain something to you," Ben felt the darkness bubble in his chest as he grabbed her wrist and twisted her around to face him. "This goes one of two ways. One: the council hears me, understands and then takes you from your family again to teach you balance. They will do all they can to keep our dark and light equal. That means…" he lifted her wrist hesitantly, thankfully she was petrified in shock and did nothing to fight him. He used his hand to splay hers on his cheek and caress him softly. "That means we will never again be apart, Rey. The council knows its dangerous for a bond to be too strained. Not only for us but for the whole balance."

Ben kissed the inside of her wrist as she looked into his eyes with fear and astonishment. He grabbed her other wrist pulling them into his chest contracting his hands around her small arms.  
"Two: the council refuses to believe me and call me a liar. You become a liability shortly after losing control without me close and vice versa. The balance everywhere begins to deteriorate and if we don't want that to happen we run away. Just you and me, working out the balance on our own. No Jedi council, no family, no permanent home."

Rey looked as though she wanted to crawl into a cave and never come out. He had not seen her like this ever. He realized this was because up until now she had always had a choice. Even as she was being literally torn from her father and her home planet she had had the choice to come quietly or to fight. She had obviously chosen to fight in that instance. But now he saw her fear, inescapable, illogical fear.

"I can't, I don't-" She began to tug at her wrists trying to free them from his iron cusp grasp.

"Rey we don't have much time, I'm going to the council," she tugged again, tears forming in her eyes, he could feel her anguish. "Hopefully they will see reason."

Kylo looked down at the young padawan and was overcome by passion and emotion, the dark side pumped him up making his dick hard and his chest tight.

"And then I'm coming for you, Rey. We will train, figure this out together."

"Ben, no. I can't leave my family again, I just-" He interrupted her with a deep kiss forcing his tongue into her mouth desperately.

"Please, Rey," he pleaded as he moved and kissed her ear. He could feel across the bond her confusion and self-hindrance. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her, but she was afraid. Afraid and still angry with him. "Before I leave, I just need…"

He trailed off because he knew if he said what he needed he would never have it. But he did. He needed her. He needed her to know how he felt. And if he couldn't tell her, he would show her.  
Ben kissed down her neck pushing her back on the modest bed. She was sitting as he kneeled at her feet removing her shoes as she watched him half in curiosity and enjoyment half choking back tears.

He moved up next to unbind her muscular arms revealing the most interesting tan lines he had ever seen, though they had begun to fade on their new island home.

"Ben I've never," She whimpered out reaching up to wipe her tears from her face.

"I know, don't worry we won't get to that tonight," He leaned up and kissed her, he could taste her salty tears on her lips. He refused to have her first time be while she was an emotional wreck. His Rey had had so many birthrights stripped from her, he wouldn't make another thing in her life to be less than she deserved. "Something to look forward to when we see each other again."

She kissed him this time. He could feel she was desperate to be close to him. She couldn't wait for him to be out of her sight, but the bond was leaving her feeling shattered and broken. He was, in fact, a part of her now and she him. They were giving a piece of themselves away to Luke and the council in the most unwilling way.

He had her lowered back on her cot. It creaked in agony as Ben climbed on hovering above her. It took all his willpower not to crush her with his weight and bury himself so deep inside her she screamed. But that was the dark side talking, the short-sighted part of Ben. He wanted her first time being touched by a man this way to be slow, perfect.

After removing her grey training pants completely Ben worshipped her stomach and chest pushing her shirt up slowly and easily. She sat up slightly helping him remove it. Her eyes were as naked as she was now. All her fear, anticipation, nervousness, and lust burned into his soul as he looked into her hazel eyes.

‘I'll keep you safe,' Ben thought to his equal. ‘It's okay I feel it too.'

And he did. He had so much fear and anticipation within him he could barely keep it together. He knew she could feel it as she touched his face gently and lovingly. Ben went back to kissing her breasts sucking at her right nipple, latching onto it with his teeth tugging on it playfully. She seemed to be in awe at this flesh to mouth contact like she would have never thought someone could love such a small part of her so much. He had so many things to show her. He smirked slightly as he moved lower fining her wet with his fingers.

Rey gasped and jerked away when his fingers brushed against her wet and wanting flesh.

‘Its okay, just let me…' he gently pushed his index finger into her pumping her softly. Rey moaned and gripped his shoulder for support. Ben's heart was bursting.

He continued this way shortly before adding a second finger stretching her tight entrance. She cried out in a painful pleasure. Ben went back to her other breast worshipping it while he massaged her inner muscles with his long digits.

When he felt across the bond that she was building he moved down lower trailing wet loving kisses down her toned stomach. He could feel her eyes on him as he moved lower.

‘Ben, what are you doing?' She thought. ‘You don't have to…'

‘Trust me,' Ben kissed her thigh brushing her thumb along her brown soft curls entranced as he thought to her. ‘We both need this.'

He pulled his fingers from her earning him a whimper from his love. He spread her lips with his fingers and gave her a light lasting kiss on her clit before pulling it into his mouth by lightly sucking. He sucked and licked her clit over and over again, playing, toying with it. Somehow her hands ended up in his long hair pulling when the pleasure built in her. He didn't know how he had lived without her fingers in his hair until this point. Her moaning and gasping encouraged him to roughen his touch. She began to wiggle and arch beneath him. He was forced to hold her sporadic hips to the cot's uncomfortable mattress in order to continue to worship her pussy.

She tasted like what he imagined sunshine to taste like. The little sounds she made reminded him of their secret sparring matches which only turned him on more.

She came in a whirlwind of hair pulling and gasping between moans. Her panting matched his and he kissed her allowing her to taste his hard work on her lust. He was beyond painfully hard now and couldn't help pushing his stiffy member against her thigh. It only now occurred to him that he was still fully clothed. He suddenly felt too hot. The clothes felt too heavy.

"Ben," Rey whispered pulling at his shirt and vest as if she had read his mind. Then again, she probably had. He took off his shirt with her help and began to undo his belt.

Rey's hand explored the firm outline of his cock outside his pants giving him the most pathetic rush of pleasure.

"I don't know what to do," Rey admitted too shy and embarrassed to look him in the eyes.

"I'll help you," Ben pushed his pant lower allowing him to spring free.

It occurred to him this was possible her first time seeing an erect penis and was suddenly blushing himself. Her hand moved hesitantly to his cock, barely touching it too confused to make any big moves. Ben reached down and held her hand in his showing her how to grip him and move her hand up and down slowly.

Eventually, she found her own rhythm pumping him watching her hand then his contorting face then back to her hand. Somewhere along the line, she had rolled them over so that Ben was lying on his back while she massaged him mercilessly. She lay on her side watching his face occasional kissing his neck lightly sucking on his skin. When he came she let go of him slightly, but he brought her hand back to rub him out through his orgasm.

After he was done groaning and twitching he moved to pull her to him, mostly on top of him, so they both fit on the cot. He knew the morning would be a silent memorial for the time they had had tonight. She would be full of confusion and moral dilemmas as she remembered their night together, but he knew this was the first of many and he could deal with any discomfort and confusion she had as long as it held the promise of another night like this. One in which he was allowed to hold her naked body close to his basking in the glow of the attachment the force had granted them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's finally happening :D Ben and Rey getting nakey. Ben was kind of a gentleman, right? Keep in mind please, though he holds Rey in great respect for her power (much like Mr. Darcy respected Elizabeths intelligence and outspokenness) he still is bothered by who her family is. He may think of her as his equal in power, but in society not even close.  
> Rey is kind of trapped no matter what she does now and even though Ben makes her feel safe and appreciated at the moment, she won't be settling for the BS that is being handed to her. Ben's two options notice serve him a purpose. he wants her forever and always and that is blinding him form what she wants. The last section of Ben's narration is very important. he literally doesn't care that the morning after will most likely be horrible for her. All he cares about is how happy and content she makes him.


	11. XXVI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is weak. He can't handle the small amount of distance and separation from Rey. Rey, on the other hand, uses this time of silence and training to see her friends and family, learning more about Ben than she ever expected. She doesn't fully trust her bond mate, but what she learns from her sisters and father takes the cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how that last chapter went? I didn't want them to fully have sex yet, one because I don't think Rey would have, but two because of keeping with the old-fashioned themes of Pride and Prejudice. IDK. This chapter is more of a reflection chapter so that you guys know whats going on with the way they both view their night spent together. Let me know what you think. I need the feedback!

Rey

It had been weeks since Rey was returned to her family. Somewhat returned that is. At her ships arrival, after Luke and Ben had disembarked for the council, Rey had stepped onto the sandy landing strip to find her father waiting for her with tears in his eyes and pain on his face. And despite her anger towards him and the secrets he had kept she couldn't help but slowly herd in his direction for a silent embrace. The hold was sad and weak on her part and guilty and thankful on her fathers. They remained in silence for the rest of their walk, but she hadn't found herself being walked to her speeder or their carriage. Waiting for her at the end of the flight deck was two women bearing lightsabers.  
One was a Togruta who introduced herself kindly as Ahsoka. She had greeted her father with a smile and a slight bow. The other woman was much more sleek and professional. She introduced herself to Rey as "Jedi Knight Aayala" and bowed much lower and stiffer than her fellow Jedi. Aayla was a beautiful Twi'lek with shining blue skin and well-built muscles that put Rey's lean build to shame.  
After meeting with the two woman she was informed that she would not be staying with her father, but instead in sacred desert country miles from her home. She would be allowed on visitor a week and Luke would be returning soon for her continued training. Rey had the feeling her father had been called and informed about the bond in depth by his reaction to Rey asking when Ben would arrive. The Jedi did not know when he would return, pending the council's approval. Her father had scowled at the mention of the name and for the first time in her whole life, she detected darkness in her father. It was a brief flicker, possibly not even there, but Rey knew what she had felt. Her father hated Ben Solo, his own godson for taking his daughter. Rey worried what he would do to Ben if he ever found out about her night of weakness.  
Until Luke arrived days later, without Ben, Rey had continued her meditation under the supervision of Ahsoka and her combat training with Aayla. Luke had interrupted her combat training with his arrival walking into the sandy dusty training room in the wrecked shelters they were living in.  
"Rey, may we speak my padawan," Rey switched off her lightsaber handing it gently to Aayala.  
She followed Luke through the dusty blanket door of the training room coughing slightly at the dust that was kicked up but the doors moving.  
"Feeling alright Rey?" Luke asked unconcerned looking out the window across the sand dunes.  
"Yes it's just a little dusty here," Rey had gotten accustomed to the humid chilling air on the island and her lungs must have forgotten how to cope with the scratchy sand in her throat back home. "What's happening with the council and Ben? Is he coming back soon?"  
Rey wasn't in a rush to see him after their night together. To say she had anxiety about seeing him again was an understatement. Her anxiety had quickly turned to fear.  
"I can see in all the training young Ben gave you he forgot to teach you patience," he turned to face her his brow Jedi cloak swinging as he did. "Perhaps because he does not possess it himself."  
Rey felt herself clench her fists. She hated that the bond drove her to protect what was hers. Not that she thought Ben was her's, but the force often made her feel as though he was.  
"Master Luke, I know you don't understand or even believe what Ben is saying about the balance, but-"  
"Oh, I believe him. I didn't at first that is true, but after hearing what he had to say to the council and peering into his mind myself I can see now that I was wrong."  
Rey's mouth was overly tempted to hang open in shock. Luke continued though despite her clear whiplash.  
"It is now, more than ever to further your training. If the balance does rest between you two, especially know how unstable Ben can be, we must exert control over this. You will train her for the foreseeable month until I deem you ready to be around Ben again. The closer you two are the more powerful you become and we cannot risk a natural disaster because you and my nephew cannot resist a pair of beautiful eyes."  
Rey's mind was swimming. A month? Here? Without Ben? No, it was good to be away from Ben. Ben drove her to do horrible things. He had gotten her discovered and taken from her family, convinced her to train with him in secret, snuck into her hut and bed like a disrespectful nerf herder. Ben was bad for her and the longer she stayed her near her family and Finn the better.

Ben

It had been almost a month. A month with no Rey, not even across the bond. He could feel his mind slipping into panic and turmoil, but nothing was worse than the dreams. More of Rey beside the tree not seeing him crying. So many visions of her beneath him withering and coming as he exerted his lustful will. Dreams of her fighting him, running away from him. Nightly visions of her. Her voice. Her lips. Her eyes. Her smell. He was beginning to go mad just like the sacred texts had said.  
It would only be a matter of time before he began having erratic mood swings, start hearing her and hallucinating her. The longer they were apart the more pain he and she would be in. Thankfully she would be finishing her training soon, within the week he had been told, and his Rey would be returned to him.  
Convincing the council hadn't been easy. But when Ben elected to be put in a Jedi mind sleep so that select members of the council, including his uncle Luke, could probe the bond. What they found had astounded them, and made Ben smirk. When they saw in their mind what his connection was like with Rey, more than fluid… completely cohesive, they had reeled. Hardly any of the council had entertained the idea of Ben being one side of the forces balance. And those that did had no inclination the bond would be this strong and deep in such short amount of time.  
Luke had left almost immediately after searching his nephew's mind for lies and manipulation. But not before pulling Ben aside.  
"Rey is strong Ben, nearly as strong as you. I will need to focus on her training in the ways of the grey Jedi. I was afraid…" Ben had never seen Luke ashamed before. "I'm sorry."  
"I'm sure you are," Ben hadn't been able to help but spitting out these words. How dare his uncle try to separate he and Rey, not to mention with so little decorum or sympathy remove her from her home planet.  
"Ben hear me, please," Luke sighed. "Though I do not agree with your method of control, I can see this goes beyond me, this bond. I will do my best to teach Rey balance between the light and the dark. If only to ease your pain and your mother's grief."  
"I don't see how this concerns Leia."  
"Your mother wants what is best for you, she wants your happiness. If the bond and Rey's balance with the dark side is what it takes, I will do this for her."  
"So even after crawling through my head you still are only doing this for my mother, not for your nephew and student?" Ben scoffed. His uncle's pride and unending distrust of him was getting old.  
"I have seen into Rey's mind, perhaps not as deep as I was able to inspect yours, but I have seen what I've seen all the same."  
"And that's supposed to mean?" Ben sneered, his temper beginning to boil over.  
"Rey is too good for you, Ben. Even after I work tirelessly these next moons cycle she will always have more light in her than dark, and you always more dark than light. And that… is not something you can blame on the bond," Luke turned away leaving Ben to wrap his hand around his lightsaber tightly. He proceeded to destroy a droid walking past him and slash open the walls of the temple leaving fire scars along the stone. Luke turned to gaze at his nephew disapprovingly while Ben's saber crackled and hummed in the violent way it did.  
Since the encounter, Ben trained harder than he ever had before. With the bond, he had new found energy and power he hadn't before meeting Rey the night of the ball. With all this flowing raw power though came the struggle of attention and focus. But as he felt Rey train and retain a better grip on the force he felt the darkness in him dissipate, allowing him to perform more precisely, meditate with more accuracy and patience, and even assist with his dark perspective on the worlds.  
But then there were still the dreams. Haunting him each night, causing him to wake wanting, terrified, cold, or so joyful he woke a broken man when he realized the dream was not a reality. And it would only get worse in the coming week, he knew that.  
Masturbating to the thought of Rey had helped at first. He would wake from a dream of her sucking him off or him taking her from behind with a painful erection. He would simply fantasize about the things he would say to her in bed and roll around on the training mat or even just remember their last night together on the island. But like all good, things this too ended. Even after making himself come alone in his room in the temple, he would ache for Rey. Not just her touch but her very presence. It was torture, being only a lonely half of a whole.  
Ben longed for his Rey's gentle yet bold and strong presence. He wanted to feel her light, experience her darkness, and mix their powers, strengths, and weaknesses. He wanted all of her all the time.  
With sleep being no escape, Ben had taken to training to the point of exhaustion. But as he slashed through training bot after training bot and knocked around many fellow knights he could feel her closer yet somehow farther than ever. Every move he made caused him to be more aware of her far-off presence. But that's what it was. Far away. He felt wrong practicing the force without her, but what else could he do. If he slacked the council would no doubt postpone bring them together again? And so no matter how much pain and loneliness he felt he kept it up. He would break his body for her if he had to. His mind was breaking without her already, so what was destroying his anatomy compared to that?

Rey

Not many visitors were allowed. One per week, so over the month she spent at the temple her sisters took turns visiting. Padme had come the first week. She had seemed very off, and quite skittish around the topic of Ani. Any time Rey brought it up she would vaguely reply he had gone on a mission for the time being. Nothing more was said.  
The second week her father visited. Rey hadn't much to say to him, and after a silent walk around the sandy landscape Rey worked up the courage to ask him why he had hidden her.  
"You see what they are doing Rey, isolating you, managing your power. Yours and Ben's. They won't stop. Look at Ani and your sister. Anakin was in love, possibly close to proposing when the council snatched him up for suspicious reasons."  
"Suspicious?" Rey was worried then.  
"Yes, something about a man who calls himself Supreme Leader. A twisted force user from what I can gather, manipulate Grey Jedi to turn completely dark. Anakin was sent to investigate, but I can't help but wonder what he was hiding. When he sent a hologram to your sister explaining he barely mentioned the mission but claimed he was headed to the council. Back in my day of being a Knight recon meant going into the trenches, visiting planets and facilities. Not returning with tail between legs to the council."  
Rey was suspicious now as well. She had seen the way he looked at her sister with love and loyalty. How could he just leave with only a hologram to explain and say goodbye?  
"You still took the choice away from me, father," Rey huffed.  
Though she knew this was all Mr. Solo's fault she couldn't ignore what her father's plot to hide her had done to her life. If she could have just said no, perhaps she wouldn't be forced into training and moving from planet to planet like she was. The training she could bear, even sometimes enjoyed as it rid her body of extreme energy swells and mixed emotions.  
"Do you really think they would have given you a choice, Rey? I knew how powerful you were from conception. I could feel the force radiating from your mother womb in a way it never did with your sisters. And when your mother was first pregnant with you we visited the Solo family. Ben could feel you then as well. He didn't much like your sisters," her father chuckled at the memory. "I now know the reason he made the comments he did and acted the way he had during his training was because you were there. We weren't telling anyone so I hadn't even entertained the idea that Ben could sense you, I doubt he even knew why he was behaving the way he did."  
"What was he doing?" Being a total ass, Rey thought.  
"He was…" Her father paused thinking. "Animalistic."  
Rey froze at the description. It perfectly reflected the way he had been during their last night together. His eyes were all want and take. His hands were rough and demanding, but most of all convincing. He had coerced her with his primal fire, igniting one in her across the bond. Had it not been for his strong emotions and lust Rey would have never allowed him to have kissed her in her hut.  
The young padawan blinked and looked at her father as they walked, feet sinking slightly in the fine sand. She hoped he didn't feel her inner core remembering the way Ben's mouth had charmed her most intimate parts.  
"What do you mean?" Rey shifted uncomfortably.  
"He was aggressive and cruel with his words to his father. His mother was able to calm him mostly, but when they asked me to read him all I could feel as conflict with an unnatural amount of darkness. He was not lost, but far from being found. That was around the time Luke began training with him so closely. Later Ben was sent away, just another Jedi losing his freedom," her father saddened. "That's when I decided that no one would ever send or take you from me, Rey. If you had been discovered, they would have snatched you up stealing your childhood and freedom from you."  
Rey knew in her heart he had done this out of love and protection, but a large part of her was angry at the fate Ben had suffered on account of her. It was her existence that had sentenced him to the lonely life he had. Even before she was born she had condemned him to a life of conflict, darkness, and judgment.  
But then again, Rey was a firm believer in making what one can out of a situation. And even though she felt pain and guilt for the young boy who had been dismissed and feared by his own parents and uncle, she could not dismiss the actions of the grown man who had come to abuse their bond and manipulate his partner. She knew Ben only wanted to protect her, that was evident. The way he spoke of the bond and the balance she could see he really did care for her in some ways, maybe even had convinced himself he wanted her romantically. But his manipulation and constant disregard for her decisions and choices kept Rey steadfast in her ultimate rejection of him as a teacher and a gentleman.  
Had she wanted him to come to her hut and do those things to her, show her how to do those things to him? Perhaps she had in some respect. But wanting and asking for what one wants are two very different things. Rey many times had wanted her aunt and uncle to sweep her off this planet in some whirlwind adventure. She had dreamt and wanted Finn and her to leave the sandy dunes and live together somewhere warm and green. She wanted to open her own scrap shop paying scavengers fairly, as they never were. But making the physical and verbal request to do these things was not to be. Ben had used the bond to sense what she wanted deep down where she hid all her longings and gave them to her without the least hint of permission.  
She was angry at how she felt she couldn't be angry. But she knew this was the manipulation talking. It was her loyalty to him because of the bond that she was fighting now. The very natural thoughts in her head to run to Ben allow him to use her and make her happy pleaded darkly, but her inner I. Her inner real self that had existed long before any bond was felt or discovered was still holding tight with one hand to her steering wheel.  
After her father, Jyn had come to see her. Rey hadn't expected this, nor had she ever had the time to react to her sister's vague warnings about the ball. And what came over her when she saw her sister cloaked in black, dark eyes not painted with liner for the first time in forever, was an uncontrollable rage. The sound of Rey slapping Jyn across the face made even her ears ring.  
"How could you do this to me, your own sister?" Rey sobbed, tears forming in her eyes just as quickly as Jyn's.  
But as Jyn's face turned pale pink in the shape of her sister's hand, Rey saw no remorse. Her tears were from the shock and stinging pain of the slap.  
"Ben was planning on taking you from us anyways, we had no choice," Jyn glared at her sister.  
"Who the fuck is we? Your boyfriend Cassian?" Rey seethed, being taught in both the ways of the dark and light now, she felt the dark side of her rumble with power.  
"He's not my boyfriend."  
"Yes, cause that's what's important right now. Your relationship status," Rey scoffed reaching for her staff in the training room.  
Jyn backed away snatching at a small staff leaning against the tarp walls of the training tent.  
"Back off, Rey. I saved you from a far worse fate."  
Rey swung and her sister blocked her blow easily. Jyn had always been very skilled in hand to hand combat, but this was new. Cassian must have been training with her.  
"And what would that be?" Rey swung again only to be blocked then shoved back by the tip of her sister's staff. Her ribs hurt where she had been jabbed and she stumbled.  
"Your precious bond mate, Ben? You think he's in your corner? He was planning to take you away just him. He would have ruined your reputation to get what he wanted. He even went as far as to demand Cassian fly the getaway ship."  
"You're lying."  
Rey knew this had the potential to be true, but Ben had protected her on the island. And plus she was so caught up in rage at her sister Jyn could have said sand was yellow and Rey would have screamed she was wrong. She attacked harder this time disorienting her sister who had not been trained in the ways of the force swinging up catching her head in a high kick. Jyn's nose was bleeding now as she shook her head dizzy. Rey let out a strange battle cry without meaning to and charged her again. Jyn moved out of her path quickly hitting Rey in the back hard with her wooden training staff.  
"Who are you going to trust more, Rey. A man who helped kidnap you or your sister who would die for you?" Rey stared in disbelief.  
"The men who kidnapped me you brought here. You and Cassian contacted the council-"  
"That's not the only people we called."  
Rey stopped in her tracks.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Who do you think? Leia and Han. Who does Ben Solo fear most?" Jyn through down her staff bravely approaching her sister who was still bearing her teeth and breathing hard. "He wasn't going to leave you alone, if only Luke had shown up he would have burned that party to the ground dragging you off kicking and screaming never to be seen again. We had to throw him off. We had to peal him from you, Rey. He was digging in his teeth so deep already, I saw it that day in the barn."  
Rey felt her insides calming, not because of Zen or light, but because of the gears turning in her mind piecing together the night of the ball.  
"I didn't expect his mother to send Ben with you, I thought Luke would take you to train you then return you back home where you belong…" Jyn's face was pained now. She clearly didn't feel much guilt, but for not anticipating Ben tagging along for her training she was sorry. "But I guess I don't understand what a force bond means, not even close. I spoke with Leia after you were taken away. I confronted her, the fucking general Rey. She said she could feel the connection between you two solidified, there was no separating you two now. She did at least promise to keep Luke close to you two, keeping you safe from Ben's darkness and… possession."  
Rey blushed slightly thinking of her night with Ben in shame and embarrassment.  
"And yet here you are," Jyn continued looking her sister up and down whipping the blood running from her nose. "More in the talons of Ben Solo than ever, practically abandoned by Luke being handed over the man I wanted you safe from."  
"I can't be apart from him, Jyn. We'll go mad, we could die."  
"Being close doesn't mean being his, Rey. He doesn't own you. No one does or ever should. Not Ben, not Luke, the council, father. You can't be free as long as all these people have a stake in you… myself included."  
"I don't understand."   
"You and Ben will not work if you aren't equals, Rey. I know you. And he is not treating you as an equal, nor do I think he ever will."  
Rey sat on the sandy training mat in silence with her sister for a while after that. Only breaking the silence to ask about Ani and Cassian.  
"I don't know much about the mission, but I don't think it was the whole truth because Cassian is being sent on a mission soon and he was able to tell me all about it… even asked for my help…"  
"You're going on a mission? For the Resistance?" Rey was intrigued and worried for her sister all at once.  
"No, he just needed advice and help with his plan," Jyn defended quickly. "My point is, Ani had no reason not to know when he would return to our sister… something else happened he wasn't telling us. Padme hides it well, but she cries at night and spends her days alone in the library pretending to study for her bar exam."  
"And you and Cassian? What is it if he's not your boyfriend," Rey smiled slightly. Jyn had never been one to be interested in people, let alone men.  
"He's… my partner. He's my best friend."  
Jyn vaguely answered.  
"And have you and him…"  
Jyn shoved her sister playfully.  
"None of your business," she laughed.  
"Oh come one. Who am I going to tell? Master Luke?" Rey laughed at her younger sister, who all of a sudden seemed so much older.  
"God I hope not, that would be an interesting training session."  
"Jyn, come on," Rey pleaded curiously.  
"Yes, some stuff. We aren't together, not that it matters. But I guess we always have some project going otherwise we would," Jyn looked at her sister suggestively. "Trust me we would, because Cassian is pretty damn good."  
Rey laughed.  
"I guess that explains why he's such a good shot," Rey teased.  
"And like that you ruined it!" The two sisters laughed and settled into the simple moment that was equally as uplifting as it was fleeting. Rey only had a few weeks left of training then she would be gone.  
Or so she had thought until Finn appeared in her room early one morning.  
Rey was only wearing a breast wrap and her grey cotton underwear getting dressed for training.  
"Finn!" She cried out hugging him tightly. "I didn't know you were visiting today! I have so much to tell you, I've missed you so much!"  
"Shhhh," Fin hushed her and pushed her off of him after a short-returned embrace. "I'm breaking you out of here, get dressed."  
"Finn I can't. I only have a few days of training left then I have to go back to Mr. Solo," It felt strange calling Ben by such a proper name, but she was embarrassed to call him Ben in front of Finn.  
"No, you don't have to, not if you don't want to. Poe is waiting outside for us in a ship that can take us somewhere safe. Somewhere green, Rey. Just like we always wanted."  
Finn's eyes were filled with urgency and fear. Rey could see he needed to save her, she was his best friend. As she thought for a moment about how she and Ben would suffer if she did not return, she remembered her younger sister's words. She was not a thing to be possessed. She was not his. She was her own person.  
And with that, she kissed Finn on the cheek joyfully and smiled. He packed her few things as she pulled on a pair of long tight tan pants and tucked her tunic wrap under her arm and fled without her shirt or shoes on, the sand burning her feet while the sun scalded her back.  
In the small pod, Poe greeted her with a yell from the cockpit.  
"Welcome back, Rey! Time for us to get off this sand planet, huh?"  
"Let's go," She shouted happily back at him. She felt free. She felt the adrenaline. And most of all she felt more like herself than she had in months. And with that, her friends and her lifter form the sand. Rey looked out the window at the quiet camp where Luke was most likely off for his morning meditation miles out and her two female Jedi companions were still sleeping. The sun was just begging to burn more orange as it rose rather than the soft pink it had been at when Fin arrived.  
Rey felt no worry of her mind, for now, her separation from Ben had not affected her thus far and all she could do was hope and pray that it remained that way for some time.  
Across the bond she felt Ben reaching for her, he was desperate, needy. She could feel herself growing wet from his want. She pushed him away though nearly blocking him completely. She didn't know how she would do it, but she wouldn't become his possession. If he wanted an equal and partner she would speak to him, but at this moment, he wanted her to be his and his only. Rey smiled as they sailed into the sky leaving behind her pain and forced responsibilities. All that remained before her was an adventure and the promise of a new chapter and freedom rippled through her soul at just the thought of her liberation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just LOVE how Rey wants to blame everything on Ben. Just like Elizabeth to Darcy. She even blames him for how much she wants him, and when she cant blame him she blames the bond. What do you think about that? Unfair or does Ben deserve all the shit he's going through right now for manipulating her?


End file.
